To Become
by Om0cha
Summary: In a reality where the Fourth Hokage still lives, a peace treaty is struck with the other great nations. In return Konoha agrees to shackle its Jinchuuriki, swearing that Naruto Namikaze will never be trained to become a weapon of war. Devoid of chakra but unrelenting, Naruto eventually deigns to enlist the help of Sasuke Uchiha to train him in secret. SasuNaru.
1. Chapter 1

**Dedications:** Ovicati, you are like the beta I needed but never had, always supporting and making sure that this unruly author does not banish her stories to the realms of forgotten-ness. This one's for you :)

**Warnings:** Boy love, some swearing.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

**Note:** This is much more on the alternate universe/reality side than it is on the canon side. There will be references to things from canon but the surrounding circumstances will not necessarily be the same. Hopefully by the end of the story you'll have a better idea of what has changed and what hasn't.

Enjoy!

* * *

**- To Become -**

**Part 1**

_By Om0cha_

* * *

Naruto didn't even need to think about it to know that he shouldn't have been there. There were so many obvious, screaming protests that any rational person would have only had to hear a whimper of any one of them before they turned and went straight back the way that they had come from.

For one, his mother would surely flay him alive if she knew that he was sneaking out of the house at this time of night. If it just so happened that he unfortunately survived said flaying, he could be sure that he would be seeing the four walls of his room a lot more than his –evidently wavering—sanity would be able to handle over the course of the next month.

A twig cracked loudly beneath his sandals and he froze as an owl hooted accusingly from somewhere above. For a moment, his fear of discovery overtook everything else and subsumed all senses trailing back to his mind. He drew a sharp breath and his azure eyes, gleaming with the light from the moon, darted around the woods that he knew so well. He released his breath slowly when nothing made itself known.

Looking down, he saw that the leaves closest to him were curling inwards with an unnatural wind, all pointing in the one direction. Something potent thrummed through the undergrowth from the indicated place, silent and invisible. Power was unleashing in waves, washing over him intermittently in an obscure, signalling language.

The bastard was actually calling out to him and he followed, like a dog to its master.

He found him in a moonlit clearing. The ebony haired boy was lounging carelessly on the grass. Both arms were supporting himself on the ground behind him as his pale, upraised face examined the star strangled sky. Naruto felt a faint sense of outrage that the Uchiha could be so calm when he himself felt as if his heart was trying to tear away from his ribcage. He didn't voice that thought out loud. Sasuke would most likely just call him a scaredy-cat again.

Sasuke didn't acknowledge his arrival but the chakra that he had been issuing like a beacon was now returning to him. Naruto could feel it brushing in a reverse movement over his skin and he could see the blades of grass lean towards Sasuke's direction. He quivered in both awe and envy at the sheer power that Sasuke possessed and within, he felt the sagacious fox croon in approval.

"What are you doing here?"

Pitch black eyes turned to his. They were lightless, made further unusual in that they did not reflect the stars or any external light at all. They only captured and drew everything in, drowning him like a helpless prey in a dark sea. When he didn't answer –how could he? – Sasuke snorted lightly and turned away.

"Who would have thought it?" he said, his mocking voice echoing clearly in the silence.

Naruto followed the movement of lips that he could see from his angle, a tongue occasionally visible through the seams.

"The Hokage's boy," Sasuke drawled, "sneaking around in the night like a filthy missing-nin."

Naruto's lips thinned. His eyes narrowed beneath a furrowing brow.

"Stop calling me that," he snapped, and a shapely eyebrow raised in response, curious black eyes returning to him. Naruto wasn't referring to being called a missing ninja.

"But you are."

_I'm not,_ threatened to role rebelliously off Naruto's tongue. Fortunately, some part of him knew to not insult his own father like that. He scoffed suddenly. What a joke. He'd already done that and more. He was sneaking out here to meet the one the other rookies called a demon, preparing to take the fruit offered from the serpents poison tipped jaws.

Even knowing that, like the moth drawn to light -only this one was drawn to crackling lightning- he opened his own mouth all too willingly to take it.

"Is your offer still open?"

He was surprised when Sasuke's unyielding expression wavered for a split second, the distance between dark lashes widening the minutest of fractions before what had most definitely been disbelief melted away into nothingness.

"I don't know," the Uchiha said, sounding almost believable and_ almost_ innocent. "What offer are you talking about?"

He wanted to hear it, Naruto realised, looking into the hungry, obsidian orbs. He wanted to hear Naruto confess to treason, betray his village and shame his father.

"You know what," he said, his throat tight. When Sasuke only continued to stare at him he took a deep breath and damned the arrogant bastard in his mind.

"Teach me." Unbeknownst to him, he was more commanding and regal in that moment than he had ever been before. "Teach me how to use chakra."

_What have you done?_

A trickle of sweat rolled down his neck and he half expected his father's annoying guards to leap out from the woods and detain him. They rarely made themselves known past curfew but then again, Naruto had rarely snuck out past midnight. If they knew what he was doing right now he would be taken straight to the Council in chains. Sasuke would be executed. The other great nations would be notified and he would be locked away for the indefinite future. Even if his father were the Hokage, he would be helpless to do anything.

No ambush materialised.

Sasuke's simper was the only thing to roll over him.

"I'll teach you."

And some part of Naruto that had been scared that Sasuke would reject him or even go straight to the Council himself, was relieved.

"You were right," he said hollowly. Bitterness and regret seeped into his voice. "You were right all along."

Sasuke didn't say, _I told you so_. He was much too mature for that. And maybe, Naruto considered, Sasuke was hurting too.

He could remember the splayed, pink strands, stained with blood and brighter than usual because of it. It had happened in woods very similar to these.

He recalled the complete and utter horror of that moment when Sakura's decapitated corpse slid to the ground in front of him, collapsing like a macabre, broken puppet with mutilated limbs askew. Sasuke had looked over too, and his cursed sharingan had meant that the image would be burnt into his mind forever.

Kakashi had been busy with two mid-level shinobi. Sasuke had been despatching one of the demon brothers when the hand of the second demon brother had materialised from a puddle on the ground. Only Sakura had seen it. It was she that had stepped in front of the man that they were guarding, and Naruto too, because Naruto was useless.

Chakra-less.

Good for absolutely nothing but being the Kyuubi's container.

And Sakura's severed head, her shocked green eyes staring up at him from his lap, was the cruellest evidence of it.

"I won't let any of my comrades die for me ever again," he swore.

"Even if it means breaking your father's oath?"

Naruto flinched. If there were ever a time to back down it was now but he had already thought it over before seeking Sasuke out. This was the final step, an infinitesimally small one that bespoke of the ease with which he could attain that tempting strength. He wasn't going to ever be so weak again. He refused to be.

"They won't know." He looked to Sasuke for confirmation. "It'll be only us two that know."

"Are you sure you won't be showing off the first chance you get?"

"Just us two," Naruto repeated.

Sasuke got up and walked over to him. He towered half a head taller than him but strangely enough, he leaned down slightly so that he could meet his eyes, an act which would be considered friendly if that glint wasn't suddenly staining the black of his pupils.

"If that's what you want, then I'll help you."

Naruto nodded.

"Yeah. It is."

* * *

"It's exactly how I said it, Naruto. I don't want you on this mission."

Naruto's fist shook by his side. He felt Kakashi place a reassuring hand on his shoulder but he shook the weight off and took an angry step towards the Hokage's cluttered desk. Sasuke stood off silently without interfering, observing the proceedings from the far wall.

"I'm a part of Team 7 too," Naruto said, pressing the only case he had. "If Sasuke and Kakashi go, then so do I."

"You will be a liability," Minato snapped.

Naruto recoiled at the brief lash of anger that had come from his father. It settled down almost immediately and Minato's expression transposed into one of guilt. It wasn't very often that he told Naruto off. That was always Kushina's job. Minato was the doting, guilty-as-charged accomplice to his son's every ridiculous whim.

Except this time, it seemed.

"Just what is this mission?" Naruto asked, confused but unrelenting.

"It will be Team 7's first A rank mission," Minato revealed reluctantly. "The client wants us to retrieve a stolen artefact most likely being kept in the thief's castle. Our sources indicate that it is protected predominantly by a range of genjutsu traps."

Naruto stiffened.

Genjutsu. How he hated that word. It was the ultimate weakness for a chakra-less shinobi like him and yet again, he screamed inwardly at his own inferiority.

A hand that was not Kakashi's clapped solidly onto his shoulder. Minato's almond shaped eyes thinned as they followed the appendage, trailing up to the Uchiha's face that was turned to him respectfully.

"He'll stay."

Naruto's eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he rounded on his unexpectedly traitorous teammate. Minato was similarly taken aback.

"What the hell are you saying? There's no way I'm staying here while you two go," he protested, looking to Kakashi for nonexistent backup. "We've already lost Sakura. You can't –"

"You don't have to worry about that," Minato interrupted.

"Of course I –"

"I've arranged for someone else to join your team."

_To replace Sakura_.

Naruto's mouth gaped at Minato as though he'd just uttered blasphemy. They all watched as pink and red started trickling up his neck, a telltale sign that he was trying to restrain himself from throwing a full-blown tantrum. It hadn't even been a month. They were still mourning and Sakura was already _gone_ in their minds_? _Before he could launch himself towards his father however, the door opened.

A boy stepped into the room and smiled mechanically at them all as the door shut behind him. Naruto watched him with dread.

"Hello. My name is Sai. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Naruto slowly pulled himself back from his father's desk. His eyes were trained on the newcomer, now confirmed to be the one replacing them. Not only Sakura. _Them_. Ignoring the garish top that left this peron's belly revealed, he bore a distinct resemblance to Sasuke and Naruto glanced at Sasuke to see what he thought of this. He was satisfied to see a disapproving frown marring the Uchiha's forehead.

Minato gestured at the newcomer. "Sai is your new teammate. He has been trained by Danzou himself and will be able to coordinate duly with your strengths and weaknesses."

Sasuke's eyes flashed in recognition at the additional information and even Kakashi looked decidedly uncomfortable at that revelation, the mask creasing over where his other eye was hidden. Naruto shot his father a befuddled, questioning look. Everyone knew about the rift between Danzou and his father. Why would Minato let the apprentice of such a man join his son's team? Feeling a disconcerting stare on the side of his head he turned to meet a pair of dark eyes, but not the pair that he was used to. Now that he was facing him head on, he could see that the black eyes that were otherwise quite similar in colour to Sasuke's were smaller and more slanted.

"I look forward to working with you, Naruto-kun," Sai said calmly. He tilted his head to the side and Naruto took it back. Those eyes were nothing like Sasuke's. The Uchiha's eyes may have been like a void but they inexplicably drew him in anyway. This pair made him want to cringe and turn away.

"Or perhaps I should say, I look forward to protecting you."

"Sai," Minato admonished sharply.

Naruto was still, not really processing the statement on his first try. It sunk in slowly and lifting his head sharply, he downright glowered at the culprit. To his disbelief Sai just smiled widely at him. A vein twitched in his forehead. He and Sakura were being replaced by this jerk?

"Stay the fuck away from me," he snarled vindictively. He swept out of the room before he could be reprimanded for his language, making sure to shove Sai in the shoulder as he went.

People respectfully let him by in the streets. They didn't bow to him like to his father but the shuffling was obvious. He didn't mind it this time, if only because he would probably bowl someone over with the instrument that was his annoyance. At one point he saw Konohamaru and his gang dallying ahead. Not being in the mood for chatter he headed into the next street over.

A series of low hisses sounding from all around him was the first hint he got that he was being followed.

"_Why is __**that**__ boy with Naruto-sama?"_

"_Hokage-sama trusts him. Leave them be."_

Sure enough, not a few steps later Sasuke was falling into pace beside him. Naruto's blue eyes slid up at once, taking in the high-collared shirt.

"Did my father send you?" he grumbled.

"I wasn't aware that I needed the Hokage's permission to walk down the street."

"Ha ha. I always said you and dad were way too chummy. He should just adopt you already."

"Don't be stupid. It would be a scandal," Sasuke responded curtly.

Naruto exhaled deeply. His feet led them to the woods where they did their night-time training and with a spiteful thrill, he found it befitting that his anger had taken them to the place where he committed his acts of betrayal. He stared at the multiple scratch marks on the tree trunk that he most often used to practise on. Despite Sasuke's best efforts at tutelage, the marks barely reached an inch into the bark. It was embarrassing.

"Honestly," he murmured as he ran a finger across the marks. "I'm sure dad would love to have a son like you."

His elbow was touching Sasuke's and so he felt it when the older male stiffened through the material of his jacket. There was a soft, dismissive grunt followed by a cold reply.

"In case you haven't noticed, the villagers call me a demon."

"But you're not!"

Sasuke turned his head to look at him, surprised at the sudden passion in Naruto's voice and eyes. The blonde stomped away and over to another scarred tree trunk, kicking it once with the bottom of his shoe. It must have hurt because he winced the next second and let himself drop down at the base of the tree, a bad tempered glare still on his face.

"It's not right," he said instead in a bitter voice. He put his hand over his stomach. "If anyone deserves to be called a demon, it's me."

Sasuke scowled darkly. "What are you talking about?"

"People have died because of me. Your clan died because of your brother, not you."

"You're thinking too highly of yourself. They wanted the fox," Sasuke said coolly. "Not you."

Naruto flinched visibly.

"So even you think I'm nothing but a demon vessel."

"Yes."

His stomach plummeted.

"At the moment, all I see is a spoilt brat feeling sorry for himself. Not a shinobi worth any name."

Naruto cringed. Sasuke always did have the best insults.

"I thought you wanted to change that but it seems I was wrong. This training has obviously been a waste of time."

With that, Sasuke turned on his heel and began to walk back towards the village. Naruto looked after him, already half risen from the ground, seeing that the Uchiha really was ready to break off their deal.

What then?

_You will be a liability._

There was a sudden burst of chakra. It was clumsy, released all at once and not subtle at all. It was a novice mistake that would be made by only the youngest of Academy students and Sasuke could have easily avoided the attack that followed it. But to Naruto's surprise, the Uchiha merely stood there as his chakra enforced attack knocked into him, sending them both tumbling to the earthy floor.

He could feel the strength curling beneath his skin, collecting particularly in his palms where he had shoved Sasuke. It was an innate part of him that he had never noticed until now, transmuted into a searing heat suddenly racing through his entire body. How on earth had he managed to live without its presence all this time?

Despite his excitement at having finally managed to call forth his own chakra, he still felt the need to make a point. He gripped the collar of Sasuke's shirt, pulling him a few centimetres off the ground.

"It was not a waste of time. Take it back."

For someone lying flat on his back with an unstable blonde sitting on his stomach, Sasuke still managed to look supremely arrogant as he smirked up at him.

"Congratulations. You've officially broken your father's oath."

Naruto shivered. He could feel the remnants of his first chakra attack leaking from his system and it was making him light headed. He saw Sasuke's sharingan activate and he marvelled at the brilliance of the red. Brighter than blood and unnervingly beautiful.

"You have to keep your chakra in your body when you aren't using it," Sasuke told him sternly. "If you let it all out, you'll never gather up enough for a jutsu."

"I don't know how," he whimpered.

He was feeling feverish. Why the hell was his chakra so…hot? Sasuke's had been so pleasantly warm. He felt Sasuke take his hand and suddenly, that warm chakra that he had just been pining over was entering his body, forcing his own back and keeping it at bay.

"Has it stopped burning?"

Sasuke's voice was concerned. Naruto snickered as he nodded.

"Careful. You sound like you almost care about the kyuubi vessel."

"I care about my friend."

Naruto's eyes widened. Sasuke remained there beneath him, his strong hand still gripping his own.

"Friend?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the stunted blonde and finally pushed him off, letting him land heavily on his ass.

"Yes. What you call those annoying hooligans that you always hang around with."

The edges of Naruto's mouth twitched.

"I never thought I'd see the day when Sasuke Uchiha admits to being a lunatic at heart," he said, pulling on a dreamy expression.

Sasuke smacked him on the back of his head but even with his head bowed over, Naruto didn't miss the approving lift of his lips. The screeching blonde was left to trip over his own feet once before finally managing to get up and give chase.

* * *

They were taking too long.

"What the hell, bastard?" Naruto muttered to himself as he walked down the cobbled path.

Iruka's words echoed in his mind. He could feel the worried gaze of the chuunin behind him as his teacher stood none too surreptitiously at the wooden doors of the mission room, watching him depart. They were all worried, even if they didn't show it.

"_They're still not back yet, Naruto. I know, don't give me that look. They were supposed to be back three days ago but I guess something must have come up. I can't give you a mission until they return."_

Anxiety curled sickeningly in the pit of his stomach. This was the first time that his team had gone on a mission without him and they had never returned late before. That Sai guy must have been next to useless if this was what happened with him around.

He knew that he should have gone with them. Stupid Sasuke, and stupid Hokage-dad for ganging up on him. He cursed the Uchiha but quickly smothered it straight away, worried that the Gods might ironically grant him his wish.

_Watch over them, Sakura_, he prayed instead. _Please make sure that they all come back safely._

It had been a week. Naruto was beside himself. Iruka had even resorted to suggesting that he do some C rank missions with Kiba's team but to no avail. Even that didn't tempt Naruto out of the shroud of fevered worry that was hanging over his head.

"Should we send a backup team, Hokage-sama?"

He stood outside of the door of his father's office, his back pressed to the wood. His minimal chakra was perfectly controlled so that not even his own father would recognise his presence.

Sasuke was the only one that knew his chakra anyway.

"…Not yet."

"But Kakashi-senpai is hiding something. You know that –"

"I know. You forget that Kakashi is my student. I know he's hiding something and I know that he doesn't want us to send anyone after them. There's only one reason for that."

His father's voice was hoarse. Naruto thought, it sounded like he was already grieving.

"I'm going on a mission with Shika's team."

Kushina smiled at him over the cloak –one of his father's—that she was ironing. Pulling it up, she billowed it a few times before laying it out neatly again. Naruto watched from the other side of the counter, his travelling pack upon has back and his sandals already strapped on.

"Finally. I told your father to let you out earlier. I swear your room is starting to mould."

"I cleaned it yesterday," he protested.

"You mean you dumped all your clothes into the basket yesterday for _me_ to wash."

Kushina held up one of Naruto's favourite pairs of orange track-pants and frowned at the grass stain that was still obviously streaking the leg.

"What have you been doing?" She clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "You normally don't go through this many clothes in a month."

"I've been hanging out with the other teams."

"You haven't been sparring have you?"

"I –"

Naruto choked on an excuse. Dammit, he could never manage a complete lie with his mother.

"I don't mind," she said with a chuckle. She smiled and put down the iron on the rest, walking around the iron-board to her son. Her favourite, sky-blue apron adorned her front and was tied in what Naruto knew was an immaculate bow behind her. When she bought the materials to make it she had said that the cloth matched the eyes of her two favourite boys.

"I don't mind if you spar," she said and she closed one brown eye in a cheeky wink. "Just be careful, alright? And if anyone dares to blast a jutsu at you, you come right to me!"

Naruto inconspicuously pulled back a bit as his mother's long, red hair waved threateningly. His grip shifted on the strap of his canvas backpack restlessly and Kushina, ever the perceptive kunoichi, noticed.

"So the mission is with Shikamaru's team," she said thoughtfully. "Shikamaru's a nice boy. Very smart and level-headed, too. It'd be good if some of that rubs off on you, neh?"

Pot calling the kettle black much, he thought. He had _definitely _got his short fuse from his mother.

"I like him more than Sasuke," she tattled on. At Naruto's look she corrected herself. "Don't get me wrong, I don't care about the rumours, and he is Mikoto's boy after all." She smiled sadly. "But I do think that you're more suited to a teammate that's a little less serious."

The pot was just getting blacker and blacker. Minato and Kushina were polar opposites if ever he saw one.

"I'm off now."

He let his mother lean over and press a feathery kiss upon his forehead. She ruffled his blonde hair affectionately.

"Stay safe."

"I will."

He had until Shikamaru's team _really_ went to collect their mission before everyone would realise that he was not actually where he claimed to be.

The run to the castle took almost eight hours without break. Fortunately, while his father had refused to teach him ninjutsu, he had been willing to help him improve his agility and stamina. The yellow flash was famed for his speed, after all.

The sound of breaking waves became audible and an intimidating castle emerged in the distance through the fog that had formed with nightfall. It sat on the top of the cliff, its spires placed jaggedly and at odd places so that it had an impressively twisted, haunting appearance. Naruto hated ghosts.

You had better be damn grateful for this, he thought darkly to Sasuke, suppressing a shiver as he snuck up towards the castle.

He weaved his way through thickets and brambles, wincing when the occasional thorn managed to slip by him. A tempting looking path from the bottom of the cliff to the grandiose doors of the castle called beckoningly from his left but Naruto was not _that_ stupid.

Nonetheless, when he realised that the windows were all firmly locked and there were no convenient trees for him to enter via, he had no choice but to enter through the front door anyway. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Sasuke's dubbed him a moron inside his mind.

He creaked open the front door slowly. He tensed in trepidation at the loud noise that it was making, each inch sounding like a crack echoing through the fortress behind it. Those enemy shinobi should come running any moment now. He raised a blonde eyebrow, however, when the door was completely pushed back and he successfully stepped onto the raised doorway without any problems. No traps or flying projectiles to behold.

O…kay.

In that case, he'd just go and waltz right on ahead. He stepped onto the plush rug.

His plan was terminated almost as soon as it began. A dark, humanoid blur suddenly knocked into him from the side, sweeping him clean off his feet and into the air. Blinking owlishly, he looked over a blue shoulder to the ground and gulped as he saw that the floor less than a metre from where he had been standing had bottomed out into a pit of spikes. The entire room wavered with the effect of a mirage and then the tiled floor complete with rug was whole again.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Aah. That familiar, infuriatingly arrogant voice. Missed you too, bastard.

"Uhhh…rescuing you?"

"You fucking idiot."

Naruto pulled back to look nose-to-nose at the furious boy keeping a strong grip around his waist. Sasuke's feet were stuck to the wall and the two of them were hanging almost horizontally out over the ground. In that position, Naruto was lying almost flat on top of the other boy.

He flushed bright red.

"Stop squirming!" Sasuke hissed at his fidgeting.

"Where are Kakashi and Sai?" Naruto said by ways of distraction.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out. The entire castle is a trap. You shouldn't have come."

"Then why didn't you come back the moment you realised that?" he demanded.

"It's a one way door."

"What! But the door –" His voice trailed off and he stared doe-eyed at the place where the entrance had been. The rug was now leading to another brick wall. "Shit," he whispered.

They were now stuck in a supernatural haunted castle that, from the sounds of it, had concocted a plenary of ways to kill them. He felt panic begin to set in. Kakashi and Sai were missing and he and Sasuke had no idea how to get out. If the castle didn't kill them first, then they would eventually die of starvation or thirst.

He willed himself to calm down and he took a closer look at Sasuke. The Uchiha's face appeared thin and in the weak light emitting from a cobweb covered chandelier above them, Naruto could tell that his skin was paler than usual and had a grey pallor to it. Reaching out a palm, he cupped Sasuke's cheek. Ignoring how the Uchiha stiffened beneath him, he took in how cold and clammy the skin was.

"When did you run out of water?" he murmured.

Sasuke's chapped lips pursed and he looked like he didn't want to answer. Naruto kicked him in the ankle, easy enough when his foot was conveniently placed right above it. Sasuke hissed.

"Idiot! Are you trying to make us fall!"

"Answer the question."

"…Hn. Two days ago."

"But you would have been already rationing before then," Naruto surmised. He reached around to his backpack, flipping open the top and feeling blindly for his water bottle.

"Here."

He pulled open the cap and moved to press it to Sasuke's lips. He didn't expect for Sasuke to jerk his head away and refuse it.

"Keep it."

"You need it more than I do!"

Sasuke was looking all around the hall, his sharingan activated and making it seem like he was searching for something. Naruto knew that it was all for show.

"There's no point in leaving the water for me. I'd die right after you do. I'd already _be _dead if you didn't show up."

Sasuke stilled, his red eyes coming to settle on the grandfather clock at the other end of the hall.

"How did you even get out of the village," he muttered.

"Too late for that now. You know I'm right, so open your damn mouth already." He tilted the bottle again and this time, he watched in satisfaction as Sasuke took several long draughts.

"What do we do now?" he asked after he'd tucked it back into his pack.

"A rescue team will be on its way once the village realises you're gone. You're the Hokage's son and the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. They have to be coming."

"We should at least try to find Sai and Kakashi."

"This damn place separated us." Sasuke sounded peeved and Naruto hid an inappropriate smile.

Sasuke Uchiha, death a la castle. It was completely anticlimactic and there was no way a brick monstrosity was killing Sasuke on his watch.

"I've searched out this entire room already and couldn't find an exit anywhere."

Naruto's eyes slid from roof to floor, taking in everything. Apart from the nice architecture, the interior was quite plain and devoid of furniture. Everything was visible straight out.

"Have you checked the clock?" he tried, noting its numerous knobs and raised engravings. Sasuke grunted affirmative. Naruto frowned and continued casting his cerulean gaze around the room.

"Don't hurt yourself think—"

"The pit of spikes in the middle. Have you tried that?"

"What?"

"It was a long drop down to the spikes," Naruto recalled. "The walls were all bare. Did you check them?"

Sasuke fell silent.

Then, "Fuck me if this is another genjutsu with a smart Naruto."

"I resent that!"

Sasuke shifted him and Naruto squeaked as the arm around his waist gathered up all of his weight. Another arm joined it to provide more support as Sasuke rotated his feet so that they were facing the floor. Naruto was now being held up only by Sasuke's arms.

He had never quite noticed just how high above the ground they were until now.

"We have to activate the trap and get inside before the genjutsu barrier reactivates."

"Five seconds, then," Naruto calculated. "I'll activate it. You better catch me on time."

Since Naruto couldn't stay off the ground on his own anyway, Sasuke had no choice but to agree. He walked down the wall, with the blonde feeling like a dangling doll the entire time. When they reached the bottom, Sasuke cautiously lowered him by his arms until his feet were grazing the rug.

"Ready?"

"Yeah."

Sasuke let go and Naruto took a step forward, bracing himself for a rush of movement.

Nothing happened.

Confused, he took another step forward, and another. Sasuke watched and only five steps in did he realise that Naruto was getting much too far out of reach. He flung his hand out.

"Wait, Naru –!"

The trap activated.

All support disappeared from beneath him and Naruto felt a surreal, floating experience for a split second before gravity plunged him downwards, towards the glinting spikes promising an ugly and painful death. He raised his arms in front of him.

Sasuke lunged.

Less than a metre above the first, malicious spike, he managed to wrap his arms around Naruto's body. In a flash he twisted his feet and pressed them to the wall, bending his back in an arch above the spikes. He swung his upper body towards it, bringing Naruto with him so that the blonde was slammed by momentum between his torso and the brick.

_That_, was _really_ too close, Naruto thought with the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

"I can't keep this up for much longer," Sasuke said, referring to the awkward crouch he was in so as to avoid the spikes. Sweat was beading on his forehead as he looked around with his sharingan. Naruto set about tapping the bricks that he could reach so as to determine whether the wall was hollow behind them. If it were a physical trick then Sasuke's sharingan would not detect any genjutsu.

Four bricks to their right, the sound attained an unusual thunk quality and he knew that they had found it.

"Sasuke! It's here!"

Sasuke looked at the mentioned spot, examining it. Hollow or not, it was still brick.

"I need to let go of you," he determined. "Hold on."

Naruto did as he was told, looping both arms around the Uchiha's neck. When Sasuke still didn't move, Naruto realised that he was waiting for him to hold on more. Extremely mortified and not caring that this time around he was cursing every single person that he knew in his mind to hell and back, he wrapped his legs around Sasuke's waist. He must have looked like some overgrown monkey.

He was pretty sure that he could see a smidgen of pink on Sasuke's cheeks, and the only comfort that he had was that he didn't know how bright his own face must be in comparison. When he snapped out of his self-imposed, masochistic, smite-me-now thoughts, it was to an extremely loud, screeching noise that had come out of nowhere. Everything was glowing blue and he could suddenly feel the warm thrum of Sasuke's chakra more strongly. Looking down with apprehensive expectation, he saw the chidori.

The wall was demolished exactly two seconds later.

Naruto stopped coughing on dust ten seconds later.

Twenty seconds later, he realised that they were on solid ground and that his limbs were still wrapped around Sasuke's body.

He scrambled off in less than a second.

It turned out that the mysterious entrance led to a built in area under the castle. Corridor upon corridor of dungeons were lit by wavering torchlight, creating a twisted maze of cells with no particular central point.

They found Kakashi and Sai in one of them.

Both were unconscious, their limbs shackled by manacles and chains that hung them from bolts on the wall. Naruto looked over the both of them quickly, relieved when all he found were a few scratches and bruises, even if their wrists were going to hurt plenty once those manacles were off. Once again, he felt the loss of Sakura when he remembered that they would probably already be awake if she were here.

He took out a pin from the pouch on his leg and began working on picking the locks around their ankles first. Behind him, Sasuke kept watch in case whoever chained them there came back. Naruto had set down Kakashi on the ground and was just starting to work on the manacles enclosing Sai's wrists when the wooden door exploded inwards, sending splinters everywhere.

Shouting, he twisted around and protectively put an arm on either side of himself so as to block the attacker from getting to his unconscious teammates. His eyes widened when he saw that it was not them that he should have been worrying about.

"What's this? Naruto Namikaze in my castle? Indeed, this is an honour."

A tall, well built man, evidently of shinobi heritage, stood across from him. The fingers of one hand were stroking his curly, brown beard contemplatively as he grinned widely at Naruto.

His other hand carelessly pinned Sasuke to the wall by his neck.

"Let go of him!"

Sasuke grit his teeth and a bright blue electric current emitted from his body. Surprised, his captor released him hastily and took a step back as Sasuke surged towards him. Before Sasuke could pierce him through with one of his sharpened currents however, his target's body burst into a mass of bats.

Naruto's eyes bulged and he had to fight down an alarmed scream as the winged devils flew right at him.

"We have to get out of here," Sasuke said, running through the shrieking creatures to pull Kakashi from the floor. Naruto nodded and quickly released Sai's hands, tugging the other raven onto his own back.

"We don't know where the exit is."

"I can feel backup getting closer. I'm going to blast through the walls until we get to them."

"But you can't use the chidori that much!"

Sasuke ignored him and they entered the corridor. He was already powering up a chidori in his right hand as he ran, the other making sure that Kakashi didn't slip from his back. With fear, Naruto saw the toll that it was taking on him. The chidori's range was smaller than usual and Sasuke was already panting from exertion. He would be dead from chakra exhaustion before he broke through the third wall.

"Sasuke, maybe we should just wait for backup to –"

"Shut up," Sasuke responded angrily. "That guy was able to take out Kakashi and we've got two dead weights on our hands. We're not waiting, I'm getting us out of here now."

With that, he smashed the chidori into the wall.

I need to do something, Naruto thought frantically. He searched for that familiar burning sensation within himself. It was easier now and he tapped into the source effortlessly, but it was barely enough to do anything with.

More. He needed more.

He was pleading, with who he didn't know. The first wall crumbled down, the reaction delayed. When the debris had settled he saw that Sasuke was panting heavily with blood streaming down his right arm. Kakashi's form lay limply on the concrete. The chidori hadn't been strong enough to break down the wall before his fist connected.

Blood dripped onto asphalt, collecting thickly like it had once done beneath shattered strands of pink.

Sasuke looked over at him. Naruto saw his expression morph into one of horror.

The long edge of a sword met the back of his neck.

"Put away the pretty fireworks and the jinchuuriki doesn't die. Yet."

And just when he thought that he couldn't get anymore pathetic, he became a hostage. Hands pulled Sai off his back, tossing him uncaringly to the side.

He watched as Sasuke obeyed, the next chidori that he had been charging up flickering out of existence like the dying embers of a fire. The man behind him said something else but Naruto felt as though he were the viewer of a silent film. Sasuke's expression was mutinous but he obviously listened to the man because he got down onto his knees, both of his hands behind his head.

The blade on Naruto's neck was shaking on his skin, making shallow slices with each tremor. The man was laughing, enjoying the humiliation that he was putting Sasuke through.

Naruto was shaking, too, but out of anger. He was angry at himself for letting Sasuke subject himself to such treatment, angry at the bearded creep for being the cause of this stupid mission in the first place. Instinctively, he felt the man raise the sword behind him and Sasuke shouted, his words falling on deaf ears.

There was liquid fire in Naruto's veins and something was burning in his stomach. Distantly remembering a move that he had seen his father do, he willed the suddenly abundant chakra into a ball in his palm, surprised despite himself that it was visible, a glowing mass of purple light. Twisting, he shoved it into the gut of the still laughing man behind him, the sword halting mere millimetres above his head.

There was ringing silence.

Then all sound returned to Naruto at once.

The man coughed and retched. Blood splattered all over Naruto's face but he barely felt any of it. The man's entire middle must have been missing but he still managed to speak.

"You…_you can use chakra?"_ The man shook his head in disbelief, another gurgling laugh caught in his throat. "Konoha broke its promise."

Black dashed by him and the man was forced against the wall. Naruto watched from faraway as Sasuke eviscerated the enemy, a series of drawn out screams echoing down the corridors.

"The artefact," he mumbled when Sasuke had finished and was kneeling next to him. At some point he had ended up on the floor. "You should have asked him about it first."

"He knew our secret. He had to die," Sasuke muttered. He pulled Naruto off the ground and shook his arm gently but firmly. "The backup team will be here soon. Get it together. You're leaking chakra everywhere."

"I can't stop it," Naruto gasped. He writhed beneath Sasuke's grasp. Everything was burning_. "_There's too much. Do that thing from before. Knock me out, anything."

"Force it back," Sasuke urged, wiping the blood from his face and running his fingers through blonde hair encouragingly. Naruto summoned the strength to hit him on the chest with his fist.

"Now is not the time for training, asshole!"

But Sasuke had that stern look in his eyes, the one that Naruto hated to disappoint. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and tried to focus.

He remembered a moonlit clearing. He could see the leaves attracted to an epicentre and he could feel the warm chakra brushing over his skin in a reverse movement. It had been enthralling, the sensation unlike anything else that had ever touched him

He willed his own to do the same.

With a satisfied smile, he knew that he had succeeded when he felt Sasuke's body shudder beside his own.

"I did it," he whispered, slowly opening his eyes.

"Yeah." Sasuke's arms supported the tired boy, rewarding him for his efforts.

Neither of them noticed a single black eye creak open, before slipping shut to feign sleep once more.

* * *

Sasuke was the one that wound up in a hospital bed. Naruto had only allowed the fretting nurses to bandage up the cuts on his neck before fleeing to the safety of Sasuke's room. There weren't so many nurses around there and Naruto found himself actually having to go and seek one out later on so that he could demand some water be brought for Sasuke.

"Chakra exhaustion _sucks_," he complained when the nurse bearing the pitcher had come and gone. He was stretched out on an armchair in the corner of the room, sitting so low in it that his entire lower body was almost hanging off the seat.

"Don't be so loud," Sasuke scowled from the bed. "And you still have plenty of chakra, so I don't see why you're complaining."

"I don't actually," Naruto confessed. "It all disappeared."

Sasuke regarded him skeptically. "How can your chakra disappear?"

Naruto chewed on his bottom lip. "You're gonna be pissed, but I think it might not have been my chakra after all."

Sasuke looked at Naruto's guilty expression and then at the hand that he held over his stomach, and put two and two together.

"Kyuubi's?"

"It must have been."

"That's…"

"Unexpected. Are you mad?"

Sasuke shook his head. "It'd explain how you were able to copy the Hokage's rasengan. Do you feel alright?"

"I thought I had no right to be complaining," Naruto said contemplatively and Sasuke glared at having his own words thrown back at him. He lowered himself back onto his bed, evidently intending to get some rest.

"See if I care."

Naruto chuckled. "Prissy bastard. I'll come visit tomorrow."

"Hn."

After he had stepped outside and slid the door shut, he spent a good minute staring at it with a dopey smile on his lips. Shaking himself, he strode down the corridor while whistling a soft tune.

"Naruto?"

He tensed at the top of the stairs, losing his footing. His whistling trailed off into a surprised 'oh' as he began to fall forwards, his fingers reaching out blindly for the railing. A large hand wrapped itself around his forearm and jerked him back up to even footing at the top of the landing.

"You should be more careful, Naruto-kun."

He turned around. "Itachi," he greeted weakly. "What are you doing here?"

Itachi stared at him disconcertingly. In a ranking of black eyes in his life, Naruto would easily place Itachi's at the top of the 'creepy' list. They were the eyes of a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, calculating and unsympathetic. Konoha as a whole had bemoaned the day that it didn't have enough evidence to put the prodigy on death role.

_The true demon_.

"I would have thought that it was obvious. I was coming to visit my little brother."

"He's sleeping at the moment," Naruto stated. His voice managed to remain level as Itachi considered his words.

"That's a shame. I'll come back tomorrow then." The elder Uchiha nodded to him and started to turn around, his long black cloak sweeping around his legs.

"He –" Naruto choked out.

Itachi paused.

"Did you have something else to say?" he asked over his shoulder. Naruto saw the frown in his profile and inwardly he quaked a bit. Still, he stood his ground.

"Sasuke doesn't want to see you."

Itachi's head turned a fraction. "Did he tell you that?" Displeasure and the slightest taint of perplexity stained the elder Uchiha's rich voice.

Naruto blinked, and suddenly the heat coiled in his stomach again. This time it had nothing to do with Kyuubi. Itachi knew absolutely nothing about Sasuke. He had never been there when Sasuke was injured on missions before. Why was he starting now? He didn't have meals with Sasuke, try to make him laugh or fight with him when the jerk needed it. It was all Naruto. He was a bigger part of Sasuke's life than Itachi could ever hope or deserve to be.

"He doesn't have to say anything," he said coldly. "It's your fault that everyone calls him a demon."

_He hates you_.

"Stay away from him."

Itachi had turned around completely again and Naruto pondered while absently running over his small will whether he'd gone bat shit insane. He was provoking a murderer here.

"I see." Itachi stared at him, analysing. To Naruto's combined surprise and everlasting relief, he merely spun around again and calmly walked away.

"In that case, please give him my regards."

As Itachi's footsteps faded away, Naruto was left shivering, suddenly cold despite it being Spring.

It was much later, when he was in the safety of his own bedroom, that he realised with a pang of unexplainable guilt that Itachi's cold, biting chakra signature had managed to temporarily stain his own, weaker one.

END OF PART ONE

* * *

Reviews are always welcome and appreciated. I would love to know what you think of this story.


	2. Chapter 2

**To Become**

**Part 2**

-By Om0cha-

He passed through the clear strips of hanging plastic that kept the store inside humid, automatically scanning the greenery and mist for a flash of platinum blonde. He need not have bothered because the gentle tinkling of a bell had marked his entry and Ino came hurrying out almost immediately from the backroom behind the counter. The counter itself was covered with so many pot plants and spiralling creepers that all he could see of her was the top of her swinging ponytail.

"Naruto! I'm so glad you're here!" she exclaimed happily, having already anticipated who her visitor was. "I've got something different for you today."

He responded to her mechanically as she approached him. A bright smile was on her lips and three immaculately pruned flowers were held gently in the crook of her arm. They looked like carnations, their petals dappled with multiple layers of pink that ranged from a soft pastel to deep red. Ino seemed exceptionally proud of them and Naruto praised them befittingly, touching one bloom lightly with the back of his finger.

"She'll love them," he said and watched as Ino beamed.

She was Sakura's best friend and that was enough, just barely, to loosely tie them together. He had given up fighting Ino for the title some short weeks after Sakura's funeral. It was around the same time that they had all understood that Sasuke was not welcome in the Yamanaka's store.

He took the flowers from her and tolerated her babbling about the reconnaissance mission that her team had just returned from, listening without commenting when she informed him that she had just barely made it back in time last night so as to meet him this Saturday morning. It was ritual. Naruto was her last connection to Sakura –Kakashi had grown elusive ever since rejoining the ANBU ranks – and sometimes, he wondered for whose benefit it was that he continued to come here every single week, month after month, year after year.

Leaving the quaint shop, he began making his way back up the street and to the memorial stone East of the Hokage tower, flowers in hand and guards following him from a distance. They were aware of this particular part of his routine, like almost every other part of his life, and were displeased that Sasuke had to be included in his agenda. Naruto didn't really care what they felt.

"Sasuke," he called out when the other came into view at the mouth of the bridge.

The taller male continued to stare at the section of sky over the mountain, the dark locks that framed either side of his sharp face wafting in tandem with an otherwise imperceptible wind. A number of hawks were wheeling overhead and glancing at them, Naruto quirked his lips in a scowl.

"Oi, don't ignore me," he whined. "Here."

He separated one of the pick carnations from the three in his possession and offered it by its long, delicate stem. Sasuke glanced at him before taking the flower between two fingers to hold by his side, not bothering to examine the new variety and his regard for the plant nowhere near as great as the care that Naruto showed for the two that he still cradled.

"You're late," Sasuke said lowly, finally acknowledging him as they began making their way to the memorial.

His voice was stone-cold, and Naruto wondered what had gotten the Uchiha into an iffy this early in the day. Perhaps the lack of missions. They hadn't had one for almost a week, not even a C-rank. In this time of peace, Iruka was rationing missions to make sure that no shinobi's livelihood was pressured by lack thereof.

"Ino had more to say than usual."

"I suppose you encouraged her?"

"I did no such thing." He was mildly affronted. Sasuke grunted.

Golden fish were leaping above the flowing river below the bridge. The water that had been iced over for the past few months had finally melted in its entirety, unstoppable once the first crack had appeared. It was crystal clear now, stones and lost shuriken glinting gemlike from the shallow riverbed in the sparkling sunlight.

"It's spring," Naruto remarked offhandedly as they marched to the other side, glimpsing a closed lily flower. "Her 16th birthday is soon."

"Don't."

Naruto obeyed. They walked on in a comfortable silence. He accepted that he was a masochist but Sasuke certainly wasn't. He was the opposite and not many other chuunin were capable of going on missions with him because they simply couldn't stomach it. Sasuke was already at that stage where he could kill with the brutality of a jounin, but not yet with the delicate prudency of an ANBU.

Together, the two of them stepped onto the foot-high platform that the black memorial stone was set upon, looking down upon the diamond shaped monument that stood at Sasuke's waist-height and just above Naruto's belly button. Naruto could imagine the stiffening of his guards as they would think, _how dare the demon enter that place_?

"Hey Sakura-chan, how are you?"

He noticed another bouquet already decorated the base of the stone and with it, the cause of Sasuke's bad mood became clear. Sasuke lay his own flower down, faraway from the foreign bouquet, before straightening next to Naruto. Its presence was brushed away thereafter and Naruto pulled a smile to his lips.

"Sorry we couldn't come last time. We were still in Water. It took longer than it should have but the mission was a success."

As they rose in rank and so did their missions, the chance of returning on time (or at all) had decreased accordingly. The people watched with a horrified eye as Naruto gradually took on more dangerous assignments, every time disbelieving when he was actually able to complete it –with Sasuke by his side – and return unscathed, for the most part.

"Ino says hi," he continued. "She's probably going to come by later. Nothing's really changed on her end, except that she can probably punch as hard as you now (unfortunately). She still has that thing for Shikamaru, too. It's kind of getting old."

"He's going to ask her," Sasuke spoke up unexpectedly. Surprised, Naruto turned his head to look at him.

"What? Why didn't I know about this?" he demanded. Sasuke and the other rookies had always kept each other at more than a mere arms length, so in his mind it didn't make sense that Sasuke would know gossip that he didn't.

"I overheard it a few nights ago," Sasuke quipped. "He was practising his lines."

"Shikamaru was _practising?_"

Naruto imagined Shikamaru asking a tree out, perfectly unaware that Sasuke was trying to get some sleep mere trees away. To his credit, Sasuke managed to look bored instead of trying to smother his cackles like Naruto was doing.

"Okay. We'll _definitely_ keep you updated," he said to Sakura, grinning at the name exactly three from the bottom and five from the right. He touched the elegant, gold embellished-letters, ignoring how many other names had surrounded hers in the short years following her death.

"Say something to her, bastard."

Unconsciously, he couldn't leave without bantering at least once. He couldn't remember a time when Team 7 had ever been completely agreeable. They had always fallen together like jumbled jigsaw pieces, able to fit together when they put their minds to it but otherwise quite happy to be left as they were. Scattered, but ultimately a part of a whole.

"The dobe knocked himself out on the mission last week," Sasuke complied in a drone. "Again. I had to save his ass. Even the client was laughing."

Naruto punched him on the arm and he thought he heard a snort from the trees.

"Speaking quota filled! Shut it asshole!"

Underneath, the implied meaning was clear to the two –three- of them.

_It wouldn't have happened if you were here._

Sasuke shrugged and walked off with his hands in his pockets, Naruto's cue to follow him. Pretending to adjust the flowers, Naruto leaned down and whispered softly so that his guards couldn't hear.

"Don't listen to him, Sakura. I'm improving everyday."

"Naruto." Sasuke stood impatiently on the bridge.

Naruto knew that Sakura would agree with what he was doing and that sureness was the silent answer that he needed to keep this up. Standing, he bade her goodbye.

"I'll be back next week, Sakura-chan!"

"Don't make promises that you can't keep," Sasuke said as he jogged towards the bridge.

When Naruto reached him they turned down a different path that they had come from, making their way towards a training ground.

"Why couldn't I keep it?" he asked absently. Then, with realisation, he stabbed a finger into Sasuke's chest. "You picked up a mission without telling me again!" he accused. "Stop doing that!"

"It wasn't me," Sasuke replied, his lip curling distastefully.

"Oh." Naruto frowned. "Sai?"

"Obviously."

He groaned. "But I hate going on missions with him!" he whined.

Sasuke made a sound which Naruto interpreted as, 'deal with it.'

Naruto didn't hate Sai as a person. He was just a jerk and Naruto _really_ didn't like being reminded that he couldn't use chakra. Neither did he appreciate having completely untrue accusations made about his manhood, which for some reason had become a topic of interest, particularly when eating dango. With the more people around the merrier.

Grimace.

So maybe Sai was a sorry excuse for a person and there weren't many human qualities to hate anyway.

"Do you know what kind of mission it is?" he asked his companion.

"No."

"So I have to ask him?" he dreaded, upset at the prospect.

"I'm certainly not doing it."

"I hate you."

When they reached the clearing Naruto wasn't sure where his guards had decided to settle themselves. Sasuke didn't seem to care, his eyes kept disinterestedly ahead. It was enough that Naruto knew that they were there. Always watching, just waiting for him to do something wrong.

He was a shackled weapon, his use already contracted for before he could even speak.

Moaning at the repetitiveness of taijutsu and kenjutsu, he watched appreciatively nonetheless as Sasuke pulled his sheathed katana out, discarding the maroon cloth wrap which he regularly used to tie it around his torso.

It was a fine weapon. Even Naruto, who had access to his father's collection, could tell that very few pieces could match up to the Kusanagi held expertly in Sasuke's grip. They had come across it by chance all those years ago in the mission to the booby-trapped castle. With the death of its master the genjutsu had faded away, leaving artefacts revealed everywhere like an unlocked treasure chest.

Both of them had seen the Kusanagi hanging on the wall and recognised its power immediately. Knowing that his partner was much less likely than himself to ever find such workmanship again, Naruto had insisted that Sasuke take it. Minato had only to give his agreement when they handed in their mission report and it had officially become Sasuke's.

Now, Sasuke was pointing the tip of that thing unnervingly close to Naruto's face and he regretted his generosity very slightly when he saw the smirk that accompanied the katana. A toothless, arrogant, challenging smirk. Cocky bastard, Naruto thought with a scowl, and he pulled out two kunai to work with.

The sun was setting and he was covered in a thick layer of dirt, sweat and scratches by the time they had worn themselves out. Sasuke didn't look much better and the both of them gave off a fair reek and the impression of being thoroughly exhausted. They called it a tie like usual and picking up their strewn weapons they made their separate ways home, Naruto to his house and Sasuke to the Uchiha district. Naruto knew that Sasuke would stay only for a shower, food and change of clothes before he would leave its quiet, deserted streets again.

Itachi was on a mission at the moment but it wasn't hard to empathise with why Sasuke still didn't want to stay in the ghost-district if he could help it. Sometimes Naruto would invite him over to his house for meals, but although Minato was fond of him Kushina didn't share quite the same sentiments. And because Minato insisted that it would be rude not to extend the invitation to Itachi as well, the whole thing tended to backfire anyway.

His father was such a righteous, loyal man.

"I'm home," Naruto called to the hallway when he got back.

"Welcome home." His mother's voice floated from the kitchen, on the back of the sounds of sizzling meat.

He stripped off his dirt-caked boots in the genkan and wandered in to see her cooking up a curry storm, the aroma of spices thick in the air. He noted straightaway that his father was absent from the table. Minato almost always spent the hour before dinner in the kitchen so as to talk with Kushina as she prepared dinner. And, of course, he loved stealing food from the stove.

"Where's dad?"

"He's in the study. Don't go there," she said as Naruto made to do just that. "They're speaking about confidential _stuff_." Here, Kushina made quotations with her fingers and rolled her eyes, and Naruto knew that Minato was going to face interrogation tonight.

"Who's he talking to?" He yelped when she suddenly slapped him on the back of his hand, which had made a detour and been creeping, ambitious and spider-like, towards the frying pan.

"Don't even try it," Kushina leered. Her eyes trailed up and down and her voice became crisp, a fragile leaf that could tear effortlessly in a wrongly blown wind.

"I see your clothes are dirty…again."

"I was sparring," he defended. "Everybody gets dirty when sparring. Even you do!"

"_I_, don't leave dirt all over the floor and _I_, clean my own clothes. I'm not going to let you in the house the next time." Sure enough, there was a broken track of dirt trailing from the floorboards in the hallway to the tiles in the kitchen.

"Yes Ma'am…"

Kushina's scowl slipped and she looked over her shoulder when there was a loud slam from deeper in the house.

"—should have told me straightaway!"

Startled eyes, one set of blue, one set of hazel, glanced at each other as smoke spiralled from the food in between. Minato's angry voice followed the sound of a door being opened and quick steps proceeded down the wooden hallway. Another familiar, deep voice reached their ears.

"I apologise for intruding. It has become rather late. I will take my leave now, Hokage-sama."

"This discussion isn't over yet. How do you expect me to trust you now?"

_Itachi?_

He must have returned early from his mission then, Naruto thought with a frown. If Sasuke wanted to avoid seeing him then he had better make his shower a quick one.

"Come to my office tomorrow morning. We will continue this then."

Kushina grabbed Naruto by the scruff of the neck before he could slip into the hallway and see what was going on. She waved her wooden spoon threateningly and he meekly seated himself at the table, pretending to not notice the piercing glare that she threw in his direction at the resultant _squelch _sound. His eyes stayed glued to the doorway.

Itachi appeared at that moment and the both of them looked at him, Kushina still calmly stirring the curry over the fire, if a little stiffer than normal. He observed them silently for a moment, lingering on Naruto's state in a way that made him squirm uncomfortably and had his gaze darting away from Itachi and to the floor and back again.

"Itachi," Kushina said sweetly, "won't you stay for dinner?" Itachi shook his head negative, his features blank.

"I'd best be going now. Kushina, Naruto." He bowed and turning sharply, he disappeared down the hallway. They heard the front door click behind him, the locks and seals automatically setting themselves up.

Minato walked in seconds later, one hand tangled in his hair and his expression frustrated.

"What on earth is going on?" Kushina asked softly. He sighed heavily.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it." His eyes flickered to Naruto and then to Kushina's face.

_Not in front of Naruto._

"Naruto, go clean up," Kushina said instantly.

He obeyed and trudged up the stairs and to his room, being careful to not smear the pale, cream walls with mud. Eavesdropping was futile, even if he had no chakra for them to sense. Kushina had unfortunately developed a right paranoia which included checking behind walls and up staircases.

But he'd be lying through his teeth if he said that he didn't want to know.

His stomach grumbled as he pulled a change of clothes out of his wardrobe and he pouted down at them. Looked like he was going to be late tonight. Sasuke wasn't going to be happy.

* * *

Sasuke was furious. Naruto was attacked almost as soon as he set foot in the clearing, a rustle overhead being the only warning he got before a heavy form had pounced upon him.

He was even later than expected, fearful as he was that Minato and Kushina were still up talking about whatever it was that Itachi had done. They had been stiff and with stern expressions all through dinner, which in itself was highly unusual. Dinner was family time, not work time. That much had always been clear from the beginning.

He was tense when he left the house. Like always he had slipped out through his window that led onto the back porch, more thankful than normal for the multitude of hanging flowers and ferns that sheltered his path to the side of the house and into the thick shrubs that his mother had built like a wall around their home. Geraniums and brilliant red fuchsias drew attention away from the black shadow that disappeared, leaving behind only an inflatable figurine to bulk up the sheets.

"I'm guessing you ran into Itachi," Naruto surmised now, blocking a punch aimed at his head. He didn't come to be a punching bag (that was the inflatable figurine), but he felt the tenseness leave his muscles and a small twitch itch at the corner of his lips at being out in the open. A stinging electrical current frazzled his nerves however and he hurriedly nullified it with his wind chakra, shaking his numbed hand fervently.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded, staring wide-eyed at his fingers. Looking up, he drew back hurriedly when he saw how close their faces were.

"What did your parents say to you?" Sasuke's hot breath, tinged with mint, tingled Naruto's dry lips.

Naruto blinked.

"Nothing," he answered truthfully. "Itachi was at our place and he argued with my dad, but that's all I know. I'd tell you if I knew what he was up to."

Sasuke's eyes darted across his and Naruto coolly stared back, understanding that Sasuke was not completely calm at the moment. He never was after seeing Itachi and it made Naruto hate the older Uchiha all the more.

Eventually Sasuke pulled away and stalked to the other end of the clearing, lying down on his back on a sleeping bag that he usually carried with him in a scroll. It was obvious that he didn't plan on going back tonight.

"I almost had a heart attack. He was sitting in my room when I came out of the shower."

"What happened?" Naruto plopped down on the moist grass next to him (more grass stains for Kushina to clean), hoping but not really believing that Sasuke might clarify.

Sasuke took his time gathering his thoughts. Either that or he was downright ignoring him and this seemed like the more valid conclusion after his body softened and grew lax on the ground, coils of well-defined muscle loosening the entire length of his form.

Seeing this, Naruto began playing with his chakra. Experimentally, he used it to slice the grass beneath his fingers with sharp twitches of his digits.

"You can use your chakra with weapons."

Naruto paused, a small mound of shredded grass settling in front of his crossed legs. Sasuke was looking up at the velvet painted clouds, infested momentarily by a group of high-flying birds.

"What?"

"Wind chakra can be used to sharpen weapons," Sasuke said calmly, in stark contrast to how his voice had been before. "Try it. Force your chakra into a kunai. Follow its shape."

Naruto was thoughtful. He took out a kunai and inspected it for a moment, its edge shining white in the light from a refracted moonbeam. Contrary to popular belief steadfastly helped along by Sasuke, he _did_ take the time to analyse things when he wanted to.

"Get on with it."

"I was getting there!" he snapped. There was just no pleasing the bastard.

He did as Sasuke instructed and used both of his hands to channel the chakra. After a few attempts he managed to make the metal glow blue. Turning his head on the ground, Sasuke gazed intently at it. His sharingan showed.

"Taper the chakra. It looks like jelly," he criticised.

Frowning at that Naruto focused, drawing more and more chakra into the kunai until even he could see the delicate strands of wind chakra straining into shape, coating the metal in a lacy aura. He was fortunate that it was night. He would have had no idea what the aura looked like in bright daylight otherwise. He grinned in success, ignoring the feeling of sweat trickling down his forehead.

"That'll do. Throw it at a tree."

His head snapped to the side and he stared at Sasuke. "What?" That kind of seemed like a waste.

"Just do it."

Dubiously, he took away his left hand after giving his work a solemn look for its impending sacrifice. Raising his right hand, he threw the kunai sharply to the right. It cut silently through the air but instead of landing with a _thunk_ on the tree trunk as Naruto expected it to, there was a smooth whistle as the kunai disappeared. Something grated from behind the tree and with widening eyes, he realised that the kunai had gone straight through it. He glanced at Sasuke in bewilderment and the Uchiha nodded once in confirmation.

He jumped up and darted around to inspect the shadowy ground behind the tree. The kunai was embedded deep in the dirt, leaving only the ring of the handle visible as the last remnants of chakra seeped out of the metal and into the ground.

"Why didn't you teach me that earlier?" he demanded.

Sasuke snorted. "It took you long enough to just be able to call on your elemental chakra. You weren't ready."

"I learnt it fast enough, didn't I?" he said defensively as he came back around the tree. "Or are you just scared I'll kick your ass now?"

"Congratulations. You're a chuunin that can manipulate chakra," Sasuke deadpanned. "Allow me to remind your lordship that wind chakra is weak against fire."

Naruto set about powering up another kunai to peg at him. By the time he'd gotten it ready Sasuke had already rolled over and drifted halfway off to sleep. He only lazily raised a hand to catch the second kunai, spinning it before blindly delivering it into the exact same spot that Naruto's other kunai had gone through. After that the Uchiha made no indication that he desired to get up.

Naruto practised under the moonlight by himself for the next couple of hours. By the time he went home more than a few trees in the clearing had been obliterated inside and out.

Before leaving his eyes lingered on the way that Sasuke's blanket was thrown off, but he told himself that he'd just wake the bastard up.

* * *

"Let's go for a walk."

Naruto looked at the doorway of his room. The brush in his hand lowered over the seal that he was painting, rows of home-made tags lining the floor as the glistening, black ink on the paper dried. Minato stood with one arm resting against the frame. There was a smile on his face but it was the strained lines spreading from beneath his inner eyes that made Naruto put his brush down and smile back.

"Sure."

He pulled himself off the ground and followed his father out after grabbing a jacket from the back of his chair, tugging it on over his shirt.

"Honey, we're going out for a bit," Minato said, popping his head into the kitchen where Kushina was preparing lunch. "Do you need anything from the supermarket?"

"Get some more milk please," she replied over the sounds of steady chopping. "How long are you going to take? I'll be done with lunch soon."

"Not long. We'll be back in an hour tops."

"I'll take your word for it. See that it's done this time, _yellow flash_."

"Yes dear…"

Naruto shouted a bye after pulling on his sandals and went to where his father was waiting outside the gate, the metal contraption wedged between his mother's prized shrubs. They turned right for the ten minute walk to their favourite supermarket, going at a leisurely pace even though either of them could have gotten there in a minute flat.

"How have your missions been?" Minato asked casually. They both walked with their hands in their pockets and a kind of curve in their middle back that made it look like they were slouching to speak with someone shorter beside them. The resemblance between them was undeniable.

"Good. Iruka's been giving us a nice range."

Cats, dogs, girls, old ladies, bastards, bearded men.

"I'm sure he has."

"Yeah."

_But no genjutsu._

Some minutes passed where the only words were to the flustered children that they ran into, a kite clenched in their grubby hands and soon to be flown from the hills overlooking Konoha's edge. Naruto saw the kind –_genuine _– crinkle of skin in Minato's smile and remembered a time when it had come to them both so naturally.

But even knowing what they had become, Naruto would still sneak after Team 7 to that castle once more.

_Punish him_, duty had demanded of Minato.

_He has already been punished_, said the seal on Naruto's belly, and the 6 scars that stood out, dark against his tan cheeks.

"You weren't needed in the office today?" Naruto asked.

"Nah." Minato waved a hand flippantly. "Rin can handle things for a day. It's fine."

Silence. A breeze, cold as metal.

The wall remained unfallen.

They were nearing a region of the village where a collection of houses were surrounded by wooden panel fencing, keeping them distinct and hidden from the rest of Konoha. Only the serpentine, carved stones on the tiled rooves and the occasional electricity post strung with snapped wires could be seen. That, and the brilliant red and white fans that were painted at intervals across the length of the barrier.

"What were you and Itachi arguing about?" The question had been rolling about on the tip of his tongue all morning and now, it finally rolled off.

Minato chuckled. It sounded forced. "We weren't arguing."

"It sure sounded like it."

There were a set of double doors, also painted with the symbol. A seal had once been placed across those doors, locking them before Itachi and Sasuke had returned and reclaimed the Uchiha district. Now, the naked, unmoving doors made the place appear every bit as abandoned as it was.

"Why do you trust him?" Naruto asked, eyelashes lowering to shield the sideways tilt of sapphire.

Blood stains were on the cement before the entrance, where a lone guard had been cut down.

"He's a murderer."

Minato's lips pursed, his gaze fixed ahead and never once looking to their right. "He is innocent until proven guilty."

"Bullshit," Naruto responded coldly. "Why did he run away then? Do you honestly believe that story about the council wanting to kill him?"

Minato looked down at his son as if he'd never seen him before. With a wondrous eye, almost piteous and definitely disappointed.

"I'm surprised at you. You more than anyone should know what the council is like, yet you would condemn Itachi so easily. When did you become so hateful?" Something jarred in the air between them.

"I'm not," Naruto denied like a child. "It just doesn't make sense. He lives in the place where hundreds of people died like nothing ever happened. How can he live in the house where his parents were killed? It's twisted."

"It's not only because of that," Minato observed. "You hate him because of Sasuke, don't you? Itachi tells me that Sasuke believes he killed their family."

The battlelines were drawn, placing them on opposing sides.

Naruto's fists clenched. "Sasuke's my friend. I can feel a bit of outrage, can't I?" he snapped.

They were past the district. Ahead was the top of the stone steps that led down to the supermarket. They were past the district of ghosts and into the realms of normalcy where Sasuke was a constant and comfort, and Itachi was the only ghost that haunted the streets.

"Naruto. The affairs between the Uchiha brothers are their own, unless and until they become a threat to Konoha."

"A murderer _is_ a threat –"

"I told you to not be biased. If you ever want to rise in rank you'll have to learn to think rationally."

Naruto clucked his tongue. The neon lights from the supermarket came into view.

"Give me one shred of evidence that it isn't him. Point at _one _other person who might have been able to get into the Uchiha district to kill them all."

There had been no resistance. Only someone with the sharingan could have cast the genjutsu, rendered the district's occupants defenceless and killed them all effortlessly.

"Itachi is not the only one with the sharingan."

"Don't even suggest that Sasuke would –!"

"That's not what I meant," Minato said in exasperation. He frowned suddenly and his eyes, the colour already paler than Naruto's, hid behind a veil, as though just realising that he had revealed too much.

They were in front of the supermarket, the occasional customer filtering out the automatic doors and walking by them with tilts of their heads. Naruto looked up at his father inquiringly.

"Who are you referring to?"

"No one," Minato replied calmly. Naruto opened his mouth to protest and Minato changed tact.

"That information is confidential."

"You've already slipped up!"

"And the council will have my head if I slip up anymore, even if you are my son."

Guilt tripping. It always worked like a charm and Naruto followed Minato quietly into the supermarket.

They grabbed the milk, Minato speculating whether Kushina intended to make his favourite buttermilk pancakes in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. On the way back to the front he led them through the ramen section. Understanding a compromise when he saw one, Naruto filled up their trolley to bursting point, leaving the poor boy at the counter to sift through the small mountain while trying not to embarrass himself in front of his leader.

"I will never understand how you and your mother eat so much ramen," Minato said as they carried their load back.

"You named me after a ramen ingredient," Naruto tattled back, plastic bags of ramen swinging by his sides. "What did you expect to come from it?"

"It's all Jiraiya's fault," his father mumbled to himself. Naruto felt disappointment at those words.

They were at the gate and he was already pushing it open when Minato suddenly cleared his throat. Turning his head, Naruto let the gate close again when he saw that his father was standing some metres away without moving. Waiting for something.

"What's wrong?"he asked, studying his father's unusual expression. He began running the past hour backwards in his mind. There was definitely something up.

Minato's entire face was frowning in upon itself. His lips were curving inwards in a purse, his eyebrows were straight and he'd unknowingly puffed his cheeks a bit. When he opened his mouth, he did so with a small _pop_ sound.

"Naruto," he began, "you know that you can always talk to me. Right?"

Naruto wondered if Kushina had put him up to this.

"I know, dad."

Minato nodded and hesitated.

"Is there anything that you want to talk about?"

Was he asking as a father, or as Hokage? It was the kind of question that made Naruto's blood split into waves of hot and cold. It made him paranoid. It made him feel loved. But there was no way that he could know which his father felt.

"I…" he began.

Minato's face was encouraging.

He smirked. "I want my promotion, old man. When are you going to let me take the jounin exam?"

Minato's eye twitched.

Naruto fled to the safety of his mother's kitchen, keeping a firm hold on his precious ramen.

* * *

"_Clear."_

Sasuke's voice rustled through the noise in their earpieces and Naruto admired the deepness of it for a moment, in particular the way that it could stay in his mind long after the crackling in his ear had disappeared. The impatient clicking of a tongue reminded him that daydreaming was not a luxury he should be indulging in and exchanging a look with his other teammate – a meaningful nod from himself, a blank stare from Sai – the two of them criss-crossed over each other's tracks to the side-corridors opposite their previous ones.

This left Sai with Sasuke, and Naruto watched from across the main corridor between them as Sai leant close to Sasuke's back, almost pressing flat against him so as to keep the two of them as close against the wall as possible. His face hinted at guarded inquisitiveness but it was difficult to tell because his expressions were so unusually diluted.

Naruto really hated him.

Sai raised a hand and pointed at something that they could see from their angle but which Naruto couldn't, and he watched him whisper something in Sasuke's ear, moving his hand to gesticulate a higher place. Sasuke's lips pursed in that way that meant that he was considering Sai's words. Deep, navy shadows filled the hollow beneath his bottom lip, and darkened the small stretch of neck visible beneath the chuunin vest that Iruka had insisted was necessary for them to wear this time. Naruto didn't really like the vest. Sasuke looked and moved much more naturally in his typical black outfit. The pale, bulky green Konoha uniform simply wasn't _him_.

Sai said something again, elaborating, and Sasuke muttered sideways. Naruto could imagine the harsh voice that went with that scowl and his eyes automatically ran over thin lips with a perverse fondness at the thought that they were being used to insult Sai for a possibly asinine idea.

_That's right_, he crooned in his mind. _Don't hold back_.

He flinched and recollected himself with a contrite expression when two pairs of obsidian gazes suddenly snapped up to meet his at the same time. Sasuke raised an eyebrow, showing evident curiosity as to what had made Naruto procure such a smug look, before signing with his gloved hands.

_4 o'clock. Five. You._

Naruto registered the message. Naruto's 4 o'clock, hidden behind the wall. Five samurai. Naruto would go first and take them out.

He lowered his gaze to watch carefully as Sai signed something too.

_Five dicks_. _You_.

Sasuke carelessly smacked the other raven in the chin with his shoulder as he moved back and Naruto cheered silently before shifting into business mode.

With a flex of his wrist, four senbon dropped into his palm from his sleeve, each sliding down to be gripped between two fingers. He could imagine the icy coldness as they slid down his skin, a testimony to their original owner. With a flick he took another one into his other hand, just in case the remaining samurai should prove uncooperative.

He signalled to Sasuke that he was going and after the other nodded curtly and crouched, he shot out from behind his hollow and darted sharply to his right, staying close to the wall to avoid detection for as long as possible until the corridor flared out. No sounds of running came from behind but Sasuke's warmth was palpable to him, even at a distance of 20 feet.

Almost instantly he was greeted with the sight of a huge room straight ahead, large enough to fit an entire district of houses. Above, a few Samurai patrolled on multiple levels that had been hollowed out of the stone and Naruto realised that Sasuke and Sai would be taking those ones out. He searched the floor for the five that were his responsibility.

He found them all huddled together in conversation, obviously unsuspecting that today would be the day that they had been preparing for all their lives. His hand flicked in front of him and four of them instantly stilled before folding upon themselves and slinking to the ground, the remaining guard looking at them in confusion before turning his head this way and that, searching for the assailant. In the corner of his vision Naruto saw two blurs overhead going in different directions, then a telltale scream which indicated that Sasuke was enjoying himself.

In his mind's eye he could see Sasuke running across the walls, jumping from platform to platform and quickly disposing of each samurai with a single, deft flash of metal that they never saw coming. Sai was the one that all eyes would be on, flying on his huge, ink bird and throwing weapons and explosives as he rose in altitude.

Naruto shot towards the last samurai on the ground, a blur equivalent to the yellow flash, and enclosed the remaining samurai's neck in a vice grip before he could shout.

"_Your Lord?"_ he questioned in a deep, grating voice, slowly lifting the man until his feet grazed the ground. He looked into the slits of the helmet, holding the point of the senbon beneath the buckles and at a sliver of exposed skin. _"Where is he?"_

There was a strange, wet crunch. Naruto recoiled a bit when all the muscles beneath his glove went still after twitching horribly and something wet seeped through his glove and to his thumb. Cautiously, he unlatched the samurai's helmet and after throwing it to the side, he saw blood pouring thickly from the dead man's mouth, painting his entire chin and throat red. The man was young.

Suicide.

Cursing, he dropped the corpse and hastily searched for another source of information. Sasuke had not wavered in his typical efficiency however and had already killed all the enemies on his side. He was now walking towards him on ground level, calmly re-sheathing his bloodied katana, never-minding the fact that the last few samurai Sai were handling were splattering like red fruit to the ground behind him. Naruto suspected that Sai was quite happily throwing them as close to the Uchiha as possible.

"Did you find the location of the target?" Sasuke asked, eyeing the bare face of the suicidal samurai.

Naruto wriggled in his boots. "Well…"

"You stuffed up," the Uchiha stated bluntly.

Sai landed on the ground next to them, causing Naruto's retort to get caught in his throat and make him splutter and choke violently instead, thumping his chest reproachfully.

"What about your sharingan, Uchiha?" Sai remarked innocently. "Surely you thought to use it?"

Was Sai, Naruto thought with a raised eyebrow, in a maybe, kind of way, defending him?

Sasuke grunted, displeased. He pointed to one of the four entries into the hall. "The target's quarters are in there."

Naruto grumbled darkly. "Why the hell did you still ask me then?"

His two companions were already walking towards the exit and they answered him without looking.

"To annoy you."

_Stupid mission!_

"Assholes!"

They entered the stone entrance, revealing a long, straight hallway decorated with tapestries and a single, long rug that stretched away into the darkness. Pinpricks of candle-light were visible every now and again in the distance.

"How long have we got?" Naruto asked, squinting into the never-ending tunnel.

"Half an hour before the heavy artillery squad comes in," Sasuke responded. He led them in, activating his sharingan and setting up a run that the other two kept pace with. "Stay ready. There's nowhere to dodge in here."

Naruto snorted in distaste at the artillery squad. "I don't like them. Too flashy."

"They won't get the chance to do anything this time. Provided that you don't do something stupid."

"I'm this close to punching your face in and _letting_ the artillery squad roll over it."

"Children," Sai interrupted. Naruto and Sasuke shifted in trepidation at the voice he was utilising. "You can both roll with the big boys later."

They snarled and ran faster, momentarily leaving him behind.

The corridor was long. They had been going for awhile and eventually they struck up a full sprint. Time was slipping away. Naruto asked Sasuke how much longer they had before the end of the corridor, expecting him to use his sharingan to find out.

When Sasuke didn't answer he felt a prickling sensation, a hint of foreboding. Turning, he saw that Sasuke was stiff, his lips pursed as he kept his eyes fixed ahead. Naruto didn't press him for a reason but he kept his senses sharpened.

Fifteen minutes must have passed. The same, periwinkle tapestry continued to flutter with their movements. The darkness ahead never yielded, the rug beneath their feet maintained a certain degree of visibility before dropping off into nothingness.

"Sasuke," he murmured. "Is this…?"

"Genjutsu."

"A setup?"

Obviously.

Naruto wasn't arrogant but from the way that Sasuke had drawn closer to him –close enough to take hold of him, if necessary – he suspected that the Uchiha was already guessing at who the target of this scheme might be.

"Can't you see through it?" he whispered, as if worried someone was listening to them through the walls.

"Everything looks real."

"Maybe if I break ahead? With my speed I could probably get out of the range and find the user–"

"No," Sasuke and Sai said simultaneously. Naruto startled, having almost forgotten that Sai was still running behind them. Sasuke tilted his head, looking at Sai appraisingly with one eye.

"If they are using genjutsu then they have hired shinobi, most likely rogues," Sai said. "Or worse, they are cooperating. Naruto-kun, you are ill fitted to handle such skilled shinobi on your own."

"So your plan is…?"

Sai pondered. Then he jerked his head at Sasuke.

"Sasuke-kun is almost as fast as you are and his genjutsu is the best in our generation. Let him go ahead and break it."

It made sense. Sai wasn't as good at either area as Sasuke. But Naruto felt a clenching, cruel hand in his chest and the frown on Sasuke's face told him something was bothering him as well.

Naruto almost said "we'll both go" but if they did that, then the range of the genjutsu would most likely shift with him if he was truly the target. It was a terrible plan, he thought, as Sasuke decided that they had dawdled enough and at that moment shot ahead with a burst of speed. He was lost to the darkness immediately.

Naruto and Sai stopped running, panting lightly and letting the distance between them stretch. They must have stood there for at least a few minutes but the darkness remained and distorted their perception, signalling that Sasuke had not managed to find and dispose of the caster.

"He might be fighting them right now." Naruto cursed and took several steps forward. They had no idea how many enemies there were. Strong or not, Sasuke was one man.

"He can handle himself." Sai grabbed his arm, looking around them. "We've got company."

Naruto slipped back to back with Sai as he felt them too, pulling a kunai into each hand. He didn't really bother to think that if his chakra was reaching out to sense these shinobi, then Sai might very well be able to sense his chakra too. He was too distracted and to him, it made sense that the rest of the world must be in a similar state. Who cared about him when Sasuke might be dead.

Figures slinked out of the shadows, masks appearing before the bodies so that they looked like heads floating on air. Eyes flitting around him, Naruto counted at least a dozen. Definitely shinobi, although the symbol on the head protector that they wore was foreign to him. He vaguely stored it in memory so that he could recreate it for Konoha later.

"Where is my friend?" he growled, crossing the kunai in front of him threateningly.

"Naruto," Sai warned, keeping his eyes on their assailants.

The figures surrounding them didn't answer but a few of them had begun drawing weapons into their hands. Naruto twisted his head all around at the circle that they formed. Each of them wore the same white mask, decorated with spirals and blocks of red. They reminded him of ANBU and his blood broiled restlessly.

They attacked as one, leaping forward and forcing Naruto and Sai to separate without hope of regroup. The majority of them tracked and tackled Sai, sending a writhing mass of black, white and skin sliding across the rug.

"Sai!"

Naruto put all of his efforts into dodging. His own entourage of five was trying to get some type of thin wire around him and he jumped from place to place, between gaps and into ridiculous airborne manoeuvres so that they wouldn't trap him with a hidden hook. A pained shout distracted him and with his heart in his throat, he craned his neck to look over his own shoulder and see the mass of bodies retreat from one prone one on the ground. At that same moment a wire snapped against another wire, bringing the strand that he had thought he'd dodged back against his skin.

Instantly it cut deep into his arm, down and down so that he was sure that only his bone would stop it from cleanly removing his limb. He cried out in agony and that gave his attackers the chance to loop the rest of the wires around his body, trussing him the length of his form.

His vest prevented the wires around his chest from doing the same damage there as was being done to his arms, which by now were bleeding from multiple wounds. Someone kicked him in the back of one knee and he fell, the wires loosening momentarily to let him drop before being drawn taut again, pinning his body painfully.

"You dogs!" he screamed, trying to pull away and not caring that he was aggravating his wounds. "You're nothing but dogs obeying the samurai!" He tried to glimpse his fallen teammate. "Sai…"

He heard a scoff and blinked back darkness as his head was thrown against the ground by a punch.

"Let's go," one of them muttered. Naruto gritted his teeth. In that moment, he decided. He wanted them all dead. They approached his motionless form, unsuspecting that he could be planning anything. They leaned over and vengefully, Naruto unleashed his chakra.

In self-disgust, he watched as one of the surrounding figures jerked in response to his energy, the mask tilting to look at him properly. Another one fell without visible reason. Naruto reached out with his chakra, commanding Sasuke to find him in the mess of dark cloaks. Although he couldn't see him he could sense him, and he knew that he had already infiltrated the mass of dark bodies surrounding him.

"Get up," one of them ordered harshly.

"Fuck you."

Hands pulled him suddenly to his feet and animalistically, Naruto snapped his teeth at them, narrowing his eyes at the way that they trembled at his chakra. He could almost smell their fear. Then all the hands on him fell away literally as the Kusanagi cut cleanly through them and his constraints. Swathed in a black cloak, Sasuke stood beside him and towered over the enemies that he'd tricked by masquerading as their own.

"Sai –" Naruto began.

"Is dead. I killed their Lord. We're leaving."

"No. No," Naruto moaned. He looked over at Sai's body. A puddle of blood saturated the ground beneath him and continued to spread steadily even as he watched.

Grief and rage gripped terribly at all corners of his mind, such that even Kyuubi had never been able to explore. He looked up at Sasuke's masked face and tore the covering from him, flinging it to the ground.

"Are there anymore?" he breathed heavily, a dangerous, heady weight behind his words as he searched flat, obsidian eyes.

"Don't make me knock you out," Sasuke said. "Our mission is complete."

Naruto's ears pricked when the enemy came foolishly of their own accord, speaking in a foreign tongue that doubtless was spreading the news of their Lord's assassination. Slowly, his lips curled upwards at the edges and cruel, bitter satisfaction lit up his blue eyes with red. He flicked his head to his left side so as to see the samurai that were approaching from the corridor that had suddenly become clear behind Sai's body.

"Let me," he said. He repeated it like a deranged man.

Sasuke took his hand. He traced a calming line along the back of it with his thumb that had no effect but to grant him permission.

Naruto breathed out, a sigh of relief for what he was to achieve.

"Burn."

He uttered the word with hatred, hand gripping Sasuke's as the borrowed power of the Kyuubi cremated Sai, tearing a funnel of fire down the corridor and sacrificing his murderers along with him.

* * *

Water droplets crevassed his skin. His blonde hair was dark with moisture. Below where they sat on the riverbank, the water was rushing by noisily, battling itself on the rocks that had been smoothened by years of this unceasing war.

They should be getting back. Sounds behind him indicated that Sasuke had just finished writing up the report. It was longer than usual, because the paperwork that came with a teammate's death was always difficult to fill in. Naruto had done it the last time. It was an impossible feat, to try and justify a person's death. An entire life would be reduced to a final anticlimactic sheet of paper that would be slipped into a folder on the Hokage's desk, awaiting the last day of the month when it would be taken by the mason and the name carved into the memorial.

_Place. Cause. Time. _

_Request to continue mission, if failed?_

Request to take revenge?

When Sakura had died, Kakashi had told them that they should never request to continue the mission. Short one member, their team would already be unquestionably weaker. They would be blinded by the vengeance and would perform even worse than the first time. The enemy would know their weaknesses already.

They would only feel worse afterwards.

Naruto rubbed his fingers across the skin of his arms. The deep cuts had already healed seamlessly and the blood had been washed off. He pulled his hands away, letting his fingers trail in the wet dirt at his sides. The blood was on his hands.

The samurai had screamed when they died beneath his flames. The jutsu would be easy enough to pass off as Sasuke's, but pretending that he was not the one responsible would be much more difficult. The samurai spoke in a foreign language, indecipherable to him. But their screams were a language that he understood well.

The helmets had melted, sizzled and slid like liquid across their skin before melting that too. Oils and liquids had come to the surface, steaming and bubbling until it had all dried out and the skin cracked and darkened. The leftover, withered corpses had dropped to the ground behind the ashes that were all that remained of Sai, who had been closer to the source of the angry heat.

Naruto wrapped his arms around his drawn up legs, lowering his head to rest on the crossing limbs. Sasuke shifted behind him, depositing the scroll into his bag and closing it away.

Alive.

"We should be going back," Naruto whispered, trying to convince himself. "They'll be waiting for us. They'll want to know."

Sai may not have had many friends, but a death in Konoha was always mourned.

Naruto wondered would it be the same if Sasuke were the one that died.

"Take your time." He heard Sasuke slide down the grass of the bank, closer to where he was. His breathing was strong and even, his words untainted by the turmoil that Naruto could feel threatening to tear his own soul apart.

Sasuke didn't give comfort. It wasn't him. But Naruto really wanted it, and he wanted to see Sasuke breakdown, too. That blank face had no business right now. They were in this twisted, devil's deal together, their lives already irreversibly correlated. Unwinding himself, he turned and crawled up the bank towards the Uchiha. He settled half in his lap, blinking uncertainly with glazed eyes at his face.

"Sasuke?"

Sasuke's flat eyes glinted slightly in the waning sunlight, holding him to continue what he had already started. They again held out the fruit that he could take, but only of his own volition. Naruto closed his eyes and lowered his head, breathing in the earthy smell of Sasuke's hair, the result of bathing in the river. He dared to bring his face down, venturing further until his lips were hovering over pale, thin ones that were so motionless.

Show me that you are alive, he thought, pushing their lips together.

The surface shattered. Hands grabbed onto his hips, pulling him down and against hard flesh. Teeth cut into lips, biting viciously and intentionally drawing blood. Naruto whined with the intensity of the movements that eventually shoved him onto the forest floor before descending upon him mercilessly. Squeezing his eyes shut and pretending that there was no ulterior motive of keeping tears back, he held Sasuke to him with nails that drew blood, wanting to feel that warm body and chakra as the Uchiha pressed kisses to the length of his jaw.

"Don't you dare go, too," he was saying at some point, breathlessly. He yanked forcefully on black strands of hair, pulling Sasuke back to him whenever he strayed too far.

The command was lost, forgotten somewhere between the panting breaths and smothered cries.

END OF PART TWO

* * *

I apologise greatly for not writing anything until now. This story does strange things to my mind.

Reviews are appreciated and welcome as always. I see that they have made it easier to do so since I last posted. It has been that long ._.

Note: This story will probably have four or five parts rather than the original three I said.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** The citrus fruit that was previously in this chapter has been removed.

* * *

**To Become**

**Part 3**

-By Om0cha-

* * *

There was the discovery and resultant screaming, freezing their breath where they stood and chiding blood into hibernation. Then the sensors sprang into action and they were forced to run for it, without even the time to dispose of the body. The faster of the pack caught up every now and again and they fought briefly and evasively with them before fleeing once more, exhaustion giving them no other option.

Hours later, all that followed them was the cracking of twigs beneath their feet, the rattle of their own rugged breaths and the plague of shadows that surrounded them, closing in with the thickening trees. In the middle-back of the formation Naruto scanned directly to their left and below, straining to identify anything suspicious in the intermittent dark spots. With each shift of his vision he would pass over the swinging blonde ponytail in front of him that belonged to the infiltrative type of their four-man cell.

"I think they've given up," Kiba growled from the rear and the suddenness of his voice after the long silence echoed in Naruto's ears. Akamaru yelped in agreement and with relief, they came to a stop in a clearing. Naruto immediately dropped to the grass and crawled to the base of a tree, sprawling on his back against its base.

"How far are we from Konoha," he asked wearily, fingers clumsily tugging out his small flask of water. The tiny bottle – made small enough to attach to his belt – did little to quench his thirst and he whined piteously after finishing it. He accepted Neji's proffered flask gratefully.

"We broke the border about ten miles back. They stopped at around the same time," Neji said. Ino was reaching for pieces of wood and bark to light a fire for when their bodies began cooling. Neji sat down around the sparking flames and began fixing up his long hair, something which Naruto never failed to find amusement in. "We'll be back before dawn. We could call for backup but I think it'll just be a waste of effort."

Naruto laughed and collapsed backwards onto the tree trunk, tasting home in the honeysuckle now perceptible on the warm air. "Thank god for that. I can't believe we got out." He sobered up. "Sucks that we didn't finish the job though."

"There's no need to worry," Ino informed him, moving back and settling herself against her backpack, closest to the fire with her hands across her stomach. "I learnt a bit about chakra ways and I made sure to destroy the paths in the body before we ran. They won't be learning any jutsu from it."

"Have I ever told you how completely awesome you are, Ino?" Kiba crowed.

"No, but I'll take that. Shikamaru and Chouji give _no _appreciation at all," she said testily. Naruto pondered whether she was referring to appreciation of her ninja skills or to her recent attempts to starve her teammates in the name of a healthier team.

"That sucks. Hinata's great. You'd think I plucked the moon from the sky for her. Shino…well, he shows it I guess." They looked at each other then at Neji and Naruto in pity.

"Thanks Ino," Naruto said belatedly, closing his eyes to catch rest while Neji sank into grim thoughts of bone-crushing green hugs and sharp weaponry. Naruto's muscles ached and several scratches were only just starting to stop bleeding. The stinging wounds were tempting the interference of his chakra but he resisted.

"I'll keep watch," Neji said suddenly but Kiba waved him to sit back down.

"Akamaru will give us a call if anyone heads in our direction." Akamaru barked agreement and scampered off to the outskirts of the firelight, curling up against raised roots.

"Half hour?" Naruto mumbled sleepily. "Then we head back?"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, we'll be home soon enough," Ino said teasingly. Naruto frowned, still not opening his eyes, but didn't reply. Ino said strange things all the time.

"I don't recall you having the authority to make decisions, Ino," Neji said with a light scowl but it wasn't serious, and he too seemed to be thinking something off, because he said to Naruto in a softer voice, "Half hour."

"You and Uchiha are weird, man," Kiba mumbled from his spot, face down in his own backpack and blissfully oblivious to the warning daggers that Ino and Neji suddenly blasted at him. "You fight like my parents. No wait, like Akamaru and that bloody prissy bitch down the -" Naruto threw his empty water bottle at his head, hitting him hard with the metal mouthpiece. Akamaru yelped appreciatively.

It was a darkly muttering Kiba that led them back through Konoha's gates when starlight had yet to show any signs of weakening. The four of them said the obligatory, "Thank you for the hard work," to each other before Kiba and Akamaru disappeared instantly. Ino took off at a slower, more tired trek towards her home.

"Naruto," Neji called when Naruto made to leave too, and he quailed momentarily under the belief that Neji was about to offer escorting him back to his father. "You did well today. I'll be sure to let Hokage-sama know."

Naruto's mouth parted voicelessly in surprise at the compliment before he smiled at Neji's obscured features. "Thanks Neji. That means a lot to me."

"Rest well. You…" He trailed off and Naruto was sure that a comment about his lack of chakra and slow healing had been about to follow, but he found that he didn't mind.

"Good night Captain," he said, filling in. "I'll see you next week for our next mission."

"Good night."

If Neji noticed that the direction he headed in was not the Namikaze household, he did not say anything. The row between father and son earlier in the month had reached many ears, with the Hokage tower being the unfortunate communications tower.

The road Naruto took was a quiet, dark one between equally dark dwellings. When he emerged into the lamplight at the crossroads he looked blankly from one side to the other. Moths and insects buzzed against the single bulb hanging from a thin string and lighting the section.

He was hungry and thirsty and the convenience store was open, a gentle glow at the base of the hill. Sasuke might have been waiting at the woods. He ignored both.

There were no lamps at the memorial. The stone was sufficiently reflective, however, to attain a soft navy glow of natural light near its point. He didn't approach it. Seeing it was enough and he could imagine the exact places on its surface that he would seek out by day.

They were now 20. All of them, continuing to live on in his memory.

He had killed almost that many people on his past few missions. Instinctively, his fingers flexed and he felt the stiffness of dried blood that had saturated his gloves.

He contemplated staying the night out there but a strong gust, which he interpreted as being the work of Sakura and Sai, encouraged him to go home and slink under his bed covers.

He stared at the stone.

"I know you're there bastard. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay where you are."

There was no indication that he had been heard but he turned on his heel and went home. He was a combination of satisfied and disappointed when no chakra followed him back. It seemed that Sasuke had nothing to say to him, and the warm chakra tapered off completely at the crossroads.

"I'm home." He yawned widely as he pulled apart the laces of his boots and kicked them off messily in the entrance. His gloves were stripped off and deposited on the top of the shoe cupboard for cleaning tomorrow before he wearily trudged into the hallway. He stopped at the entrance of the living room, shifting his backpack and bending backwards to look inside.

"Mum?" he asked incredulously, blinking at the mop of red hair that rested on the couch arm. "What are you doing? It's 4 in the morning."

"Naruto." Kushina looked backwards at him and pulled herself up. She had been asleep and Naruto felt guilty for rousing her, but circumstances seriously begged the question of why she was on the couch in the first place. That was strictly Minato's resting place once his death sentence was handed down by Kushina.

"Are you okay?" he said, concerned at her tiredness. He flitted to the spot beside her immediately. "Is it your seal?"

"It's fine," she said, and her brown eyes crinkled with a smile as she brushed Naruto's grimy hair with her slender fingers. "It hasn't played up for a long time, and it won't again if your father has anything to say about it."

"Why are you sleeping in the living room?"

She looked a bit sheepish. "Well. You know how your father's been spending late nights at work for the past few weeks. And you've had your missions. The house has been rather quiet."

_And I've been waiting for you to come back_.

"Sorry," he murmured, leaning forward and enveloping her in an embrace. Kushina hummed appreciatively and laughed at her still childish son. His frame was larger than hers, however, and Naruto was struck with how fragile she was, slight and delicate in his arms. In recent years she could no longer go on missions and Naruto's chest weighed heavily whenever he thought of it.

"Nonsense. I'm glad you're home," she said affectionately. "Go up and sleep –after a bath, mind you."

"I will. What about you?"

She nodded her head at the table where a note sat beside a three-pronged kunai, the top of the paper shredded slightly. "I'll wait a bit longer. Your father says he'll be back soon."

"Okay."

Naruto went upstairs. There, he grabbed a blanket from his own freshly laundered pile before going back down and pulling it over Kushina, who had drawn her bare feet back up against her floral nightdress on the couch and fallen asleep again, completely at ease within her domain. He let it drape over her shoulders gently.

Picking up the note on the desk, he was disappointed to see that it was a simple, short message.

_Will be home in an hour. Go to sleep first_.

He carefully put it back down in the same spot, only a little guilty.

Naruto woke up less than five hours later and by then Minato had already returned and left again. He was relieved when he didn't find Kushina in the kitchen and assumed that she was still resting upstairs. He threw all his dirty clothes into the washing machine and fixed himself burnt scrambled eggs, determined to leave quickly. However, his casual clothes and sandals in the village centre were like a walking advert as to his free schedule, and he regretted not taking the time to put on something less conspicuous than his orange shirt.

"Hey Naruto, do you have any missions next week? We're looking for someone!"

"Maybe! I'll let you know."

And things like,

"Have you and Hokage-sama sorted things out yet? He means well, you know –"

"Going to do that, right now."

No one asked him whether he and Sasuke had sorted things out. Why should they? In their eyes, Naruto deserved a teammate of better heritage and temperament than the Uchiha.

"Mum," Naruto said the moment he walked into Minato's office, "stayed up all night waiting for you." His father had been talking to two of his men and Naruto discerned the messiness of the office since he'd last entered. A sliding gaze took in mountains of stamped documents, some of them with the bright, wax-set symbols of other Kages.

Minato exhaled, resolved to his fate, as the other occupants of the room fell into silence and looked uncertainly between them. So his son had finally blown off enough steam to have a proper talk. He looked at the ANBU on either side of him and they meekly left through the door, closing it behind them on the family war.

"Your mother," Minato stated over interlocking fingers, "was also waiting for you."

They stared at each other, Naruto with stubbornness and Minato with a tired expectancy.

"Let's make a deal," Naruto said. "There's no way I'm giving up on that promotion. But I don't want to make mum worry either. We alternate. I go on longer missions when you're not covered up to your ears with meetings and paperwork, and you make sure to get home on time."

"Your mother is strong," Minato murmured, but he agreed wholeheartedly that it was a good idea and he said so.

"Good." Naruto turned to leave.

"Neji came to see me last night, before I went home."

Naruto froze. He hadn't gone to the woods last night, however, and he slowly eased the blood back to his heart. There was no suspicion.

"What about it?" he asked casually.

"He said that I should think about making you Captain."

Naruto's eyes widened. He thanked Neji a dozen times in his mind and slowly turned back around. "And what do you think?"

Minato studied then smiled at his son, practically a bundle of nerves and eagerness. "I'll say that with the missions you've taken in the past few weeks, you lot have almost got me convinced. One more A-Rank. You do one more A-Rank the way you've been doing, and I'll promote you."

Naruto stared, eyes still dilated and even starting to glaze over with excitement. "That…"

"I was surprised," Minato said, his eyes softening as he pulled back from his desk and into his seat. "If even Sasuke said that you weren't ready, I thought that that must be the case. I'm proud of you for proving us wrong."

"I…" Naruto lips thinned. "Thanks dad. And I'm sorry."

"Me too." Minato's debated a bit with something before tossing it out. "And so is Sasuke."

"Like hell he is."

"Naruto…"

"The back-stabbing bastard has to _grovel_ before I'll forgive him," Naruto hissed crossly and Minato held his hands up before him in surrender, unwilling to invoke his son's rage so shortly after he'd calmed it.

"Okay, okay." Minato leaned across to pull open one of the cupboards in his desk and retrieve a small, red pocket diary, which he tossed over the piles of paperwork to Naruto. "Take a look at that and figure out when you want your next A rank."

"Now?"

"No, I've got a meeting so take it with you. Just remember to give it back to me tonight. And try to get home before 7. I've posted some more guards around the house."

"What? Why?" Naruto asked, startled.

"Your mother said she's noticed foreign chakra near the house," Minato said, frowning. "I think it's just passers-by but best to be safe. Have you noticed anything strange?"

He shook his head slowly.

"I haven't. Can't sense chakra remember?" He laughed deprecatingly and restrained himself from finishing with a nervous cough.

"Oh, sorry. I just thought you might have seen something," Minato apologised. Naruto felt the trickles of maturity that meant hearing his father apologise no longer brought the soaring flights of triumph that it used to.

"I'll keep a look out," he assured.

He bumped into Kotestu and Izumo on the way out and fumbled an apology before striding off, the two of them looking confusedly after him over the folders for the next meeting.

"What's up with him?"

* * *

Upon slipping soundlessly through the shrubs – which had thinned without his mother's audacious care – he slunk immediately into the shadows of the opposite apartments and shot off in the direction which he had decided was the guards' blind spot. The effort needed to completely suppress his chakra was strenuous. The amount that had built up over the past few weeks had begun leaking.

Enough for his parents to detect.

He paused between the two buildings, listening carefully for followers. When he was sure there was no one he continued, leading a false trail towards Sasuke's house. A short way away he activated the seal that he'd conveniently pinned to the base of a tree outside of Konoha and disappeared in a flicker of chakra.

Breathing in the fresh, mountainous night air for the first time in an age, he walked almost blindly, following the metallic trickling of water. Once there he stripped down to his boxers and left his clothes and shoes on the bank as he waded into the slowly flowing river.

Bracing against the shock of cold, he relaxed against the riverbank and allowed his chakra to leave his body. His hands glowed bright blue and stroked smooth stones and pebbles absently. His chakra was mostly absorbed into the water rather than the air, remaining trapped beneath the water surface to be carried further downstream and away from detection. However, any shinobi who chose to stand in the water there anytime soon was going to get a nasty shock when they did.

His lips parted in relaxation and he sank until water was bubbling at his chin. Half-open blue eyes adjusted to the darkness and lazily flickered from side to side. He was sure that Sasuke was out there tonight. The question was whether he would approach.

Twenty minutes later he had almost dozed off and was starting to feel wrinkly and gross. Having offloaded enough chakra for now, he worked his numb legs and climbed back up the bank to his clothes. Shivering, he used his cape to wipe off beads of moisture and settled back onto the grass after pulling his pants and shirt back on.

He planned to return maybe half an hour before the guards were due to change shifts. By that time the current group would be nearing that state of docile resolve in which they doubted anything would happen for the rest of the early hours of the morning.

The woods began to grow cold. He pulled his cape over him like a blanket and debated with the idea of lighting a fire but ultimately decided against it. He curled up instead in an attempt to keep warm, body huddling in the open like an animal unsure of whether it wanted to be found.

"Wake up."

"Ngh…"

"Wake up already."

"Fuck off…"

"I would but it would be both our asses on the line."

Naruto bolted upright in the pitch black darkness. The first thing he registered as the cape slid off his shoulder was that the air was no longer bitingly cold. Then he realised that he had fallen asleep without anyone to distract him and he scrambled to get to his feet.

"Shit!"

"Calm down. You have an hour before the shift change." Sasuke's exasperation was silent in his voice but clear on his face. He eyed Naruto for barely a second with condescending reprimand before rising out of his crouch and stalking away in a tug of his cloak. Naruto blinked, flabbergasted at what was seemingly both appearance and disappearance out of nowhere.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"Shut up." Sasuke hissed back at his inability to moderate his voice.

"Don't you have something to say to me? Like, I dunno, an apology?" Naruto struggled to get his foot out of his cape. When he stood up it was with hands clenched into fists by his side. Sasuke wore an impatient expression. He evidently had no desire to stay and continue this conversation and Naruto felt, not for the first time, that perhaps he had overestimated his self-worth in the Uchiha's eyes.

"Is the Hokage's boy disappointed that daddy didn't promote him?"

"I'm pissed that my _best friend_ would tell the Hokage that I'm a pathetic excuse of a shinobi."

"You're putting words in my mouth."

"You're not getting out of it that easily." Naruto pulled his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I thought we were over this. It's not like I'd be _beating_ you or anything." His eyes narrowed and he added icily, "After all, you're joining ANBU at the end of the week and I'll just be a Jounin Captain, if that."

Sasuke blinked quickly once, twice, in the only indicator of surprise. "How do you know about that?"

"Friends. People. Rumours." Naruto shrugged. "Point is I know and you didn't tell me yourself."

"It's hard to do that when you've been acting like a woman and avoiding the entire village for the past few weeks."

"You've never had any problems finding me in the past."

"You're angry. Despite what you may think, I don't go looking for fights. Which is why," Sasuke said as Naruto opened his mouth again, "if all you want to do is vent at me, I'm leaving."

Naruto grinded his teeth. "What do you want to do then? Fight? Kiss and makeup?"

"You're ridiculous."

That hurt more than it should have and Naruto gave his one time lover the most venomous glare he could muster. Sasuke must have taken that as a cue and he was gone the next instant. Naruto could feel him travelling fast towards his favourite spot to sleep and fuming, he turned and sprinted at a faster speed in the opposite direction.

"Son, are you feeling alright?"

Naruto jolted. The wooden legs of his chair hopped a few inches across tile and cereal sloshed out of his spoon, half of it landing back in the bowl and the rest spilling onto the table. Kushina scolded him and stood up to grab a tea-towel.

"You seem distracted," Minato commented, watching him closely. His own empty bowl and spoon sat neatly before him.

"It's nothing." Naruto smiled wryly. "Just had trouble sleeping." The dark circles under his eyes would attest to that story. He noted that Minato was adorning similar marks, and even a series of deep lines which had not been there before his marathon of missions.

"Did something happen on your last mission?" Kushina asked as she wiped away his mess. "Maybe you should take a break. You've been taking so many lately." She cast a pointed glare at Minato at this point, as if it were somehow his fault.

"Maybe," Naruto agreed. Or maybe he should give Sasuke a good beating like he deserved.

"Has your seal been acting up, son?" Minato queried. Kushina let out a laugh and thwacked Minato lightly on the shoulder.

"Just because you messed up one seal doesn't mean you should start doubting every single one you've ever done," she chided. She said it with no reproach, only affection, and continued bustling around and cleaning up breakfast like it tugged no tendrils in her mind.

"Of course not, dear," but he looked expectantly for Naruto's reply nonetheless.

"It's really nothing," Naruto said earnestly. "I, err, just have the fight with Sasuke on my mind." If only they knew how much deeper it went.

"I see." Naruto watched Minato's shrewd eyes reflect some vestige of careful thought. Then, "Send Sasuke to my office when you see him today please."

"What? Why can't you just get one of your other messengers to do it?" Naruto didn't bother to hide his displeasure. It seemed like Minato would be continuing to take Sasuke's side.

"That was an order. You also report to me, don't forget."

Naruto whined unhappily in his throat but Minato looked unswayed. "Fine."

This was not the way he imagined things going, he thought as he raised his knuckles and rapped firmly on the door of the main Uchiha residence. Sasuke was supposed to come and grovel at _him_, not the other way around. And Naruto knew that there would be grovelling. There was no way Sasuke was going to do anything less than live up to his bastard title.

"About time," he growled when the door finally opened, but cut himself off when instead of meeting Sasuke's eyes at roughly the same height, he had to look several inches higher into another pair of black pupils.

"Itachi," he greeted, smiling and feigning ignorance even though he could sense Sasuke clearly within the house, "is Sasuke home by any chance?"

"It is nice to see you looking well Naruto. I have to admit, I was a bit concerned." Naruto was astonished at the genuine smile that flitted across Itachi's face and hurriedly stepped into the house when Itachi stood aside for him. The man was dressed in a casual black jumper and pants, indicating that he was having a free day at home. "Sasuke is upstairs in his room. It seems that he is up to his dramatics again." A rather nice way of saying, I know you two are currently in the midst of another foolish cold war.

Foolish little brother. Foolish little brother's foolish friend. The implied words poked like a finger at the side of Naruto's head.

Naruto laughed out loud, surprised despite himself. "Yeah. Sorry about that. He's probably been a complete ass for the past few weeks. Worse than normal anyway." He took vindictive pleasure in knowing that Sasuke was probably listening to their every word.

"No, not at all," Itachi replied. "I've barely seen any of him."

Yes, Naruto thought. With their combined missions and Sasuke's liking for sleeping anywhere but the Uchiha manor, he didn't doubt that.

He bowed respectfully and Itachi dismissed him, leaving into one of the many rooms on the ground floor. Naruto had been over a fair few times so he knew where Sasuke's room was. If he hadn't, he had no doubts that he would get lost in the maze that the Uchihas seemed to enjoy turning their homes into. They were an especially secretive clan and it was reflected in their methods of guarding their residences.

He slid open Sasuke's plain door without bothering to knock. Sasuke looked up from his low table and Naruto grinned as he closed the door behind him.

"Message for one arrogant, Uchiha jerk," he said. Insulting Sasuke with Itachi had done good for his spirits. "Hokage-sama would like to see his pompousness in his office, preferably early in the day so that they can both catch-up on much needed beauty sleep later tonight." And indeed, Sasuke was bearing similar evidence of insomnia on his pale skin.

"You change sides rather easily, don't you," Sasuke said calmly, putting down his brush on the rest and examining his calligraphy. "Is my siding with your father enough to drive you to Itachi? That's unexpectedly petty of you."

"Say what you want," Naruto shot back. "At least Itachi had the decency to answer me."

"Only because he's psychotic and knows that you won't be barking back at him over stupid things."

Naruto clenched his teeth but relaxed his jaw quickly again. He took a deep, calming breath.

"Whatever," he said in forced boredom. "Just show up so dad stops making a big deal over it and thinks we're good."

"Have you finished your tantrum yet?" Sasuke asked when he put his hand on the door and made to open it again. "I'm surprised at how long you've held on this time."

Naruto sighed loudly. "Just about," he admitted ruefully. "It's too tiring being mad at you two." Really, he just needed some acknowledgement by Sasuke that he had been an ass and he'd be ready to forgive him for anything right now. It had been reduced to a matter of pride, now that his promotion was no longer in serious jeopardy.

"I don't suppose letting you punch me is going to fix things?"

Naruto swung around, taken aback at the humility of the offer and wary of it. "Is this because of Itachi?" he asked wearily. "It's not like I'm going to become best buds with him just because we have a misunderstanding. You don't have to go that far."

"So you'll stop with the theatrics?"

"For god's – yes, fine! Is it so hard for you to say sorry? You always have to blindside me into forgiving you," Naruto said, exasperated.

"Works like a charm," Sasuke replied, picking up his brush again, "so why not?"

"Getting pissed again."

"Sit down." Sasuke patted the cushion beside him without looking.

"Not a dog, you ass. And you're supposed to be going to see the Hokage right now so no, I won't sit down."

Sasuke put his brush down again. He leaned over the cushion, took a firm grip on Naruto's wrist and pulled him down with minimal effort, only pivoting his arm around his elbow. Off balance, Naruto landed on his knees on the soft, plush mound, a twisted glower on his face.

"What if I say that I do want to kiss and makeup?" Sasuke said. His hand was still on Naruto's wrist and chakra seeped through the connection enticingly. His face was in Naruto's and Naruto looked unabashedly at his lips.

"You're insane if you think I'm going to make the first move," he said coolly.

Sasuke leaned in and Naruto briefly played with the impulse idea of pulling back and running off, a mini-Naruto waving its ass tauntingly at mini-Sasuke in his mind. But this game of denial had dragged on for years, and the touching always was a hard earned precipice that was rewarded only every now and again. So he sat still and let Sasuke tilt their heads to meet their lips softly. The touch was simple and uncomplicated by further suggestions, only the brushing of slightly dry lips for a few seconds.

Sunlight draped in from Sasuke's open window, painting the room in gold and thrumming, summer heat. Cicadas sang loudly and Naruto wondered what Itachi was hearing. It was the both of them that pulled apart simultaneously – because Naruto never wanted to look like he craved it more than the other – and then they were both standing up and wordlessly leaving the room. Naruto waited in the hallway for Sasuke to throw on a clean shirt before joining him.

On their way to the Hokage Tower, Naruto thought, he had most definitely won this time.

* * *

Sasuke was inducted into ANBU and Naruto knew rather than suspected that Kakashi would be assigned as his mentor for his first few missions. He had his first close, social contact with the silver haired man in years, bringing forth a little contempt that his initial teacher had refrained from maintaining a closer relationship with all of his students.

Blatantly speaking, he was a bit jealous of Sasuke.

Behaviour wise, not much had changed in Kakashi. The man still lounged about with an air of careless confidence and was much more interested in remaining immersed in his books than entertaining Naruto's small attempts at prolonged conversation. Physically, Naruto thought he looked older –this he could tell even with the mask - but the same could be said of everyone nowadays.

There was no grand ceremony; it was suicide to announce such a promotion to the world. Instead, only Sasuke's jounin team and other regular mission partners were invited to a small 'goodbye' dinner, as was tradition. It didn't mean that they would never have another mission together. It just wouldn't be as common anymore, and they were respectfully acknowledging that Sasuke would now be hanging his life out on a much thinner, more fragile line than before.

Naruto sat beside him on the bench and surreptitiously sipped sake. Sasuke's dinner was an unusually small gathering at a homely, family run establishment. What was more, the Hokage's family itself was present, surrounded by admiring shinobi eager to speak. Hence, Naruto surreptitiously sipped sake whenever his parents turned the other way.

"Congratulations," he said eventually when they were relatively isolated, lifting his small cup and tilting his head to his now ex-partner. Sasuke, who had refused to join in the drinking games that some of the more rowdy guys had set up, clinked his full cup against Naruto's and they drank.

"Where's Itachi?" Naruto asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Picking up a bottle at random from the selection on the long table, he inspected the label briefly before shrugging and beginning to refill Sasuke's cup for him. "Or maybe I should be asking, how did you manage to bribe him to stay away?"

Sasuke snorted and shook his head, a malignant glint reflecting in his eyes and on the sake surface. "He's been pulled off duty indefinitely as of yesterday. He was moping in his room when I left."

"What?" Naruto paused incredulously.

Sasuke grunted affirmatively.

"How?" Naruto's voice dropped to a whisper and after looking around, he set down the bottle and leaned in close to Sasuke's ear. "Did you finally get evidence…?"

"I didn't know until it happened," Sasuke refuted, facing him head on. "Your father made the decision."

"He hasn't mentioned anything," Naruto said thoughtfully, curious as a cat over what might have been the catalyst for the suspension.

"It's hardly something to talk about over dinner."

"I guess." Naruto smirked and Sasuke's nose wrinkled at the pungent blast of alcohol that ensued with the movement. Sasuke's hand slathered itself to his forehead and indignantly, Naruto felt his head pushed back.

"What was that for?" he protested.

"You stink."

"I do not!" For emphasis, he shoved one elbow onto the table in front of Sasuke and pushed his face in front of him again, breathing out loudly. Sasuke made an extremely uncharacteristic spluttering noise that was suspciously close to a gag.

"Idiot!"

"Boys…"

Naruto twisted, still grinning, on his elbow. The rest of the group, his parents included, were eyeing them over the dish and bottle littered table-top with a combination of skeptically perplexed and embarrassed expressions.

Oh.

"It's _not_ what it looks like!"

"Naruto! Are you drinking?" Kushina asked in a rising voice, threat clinging in terror to every word she uttered. Naruto, realising the more imminent danger he was in, shoved the cup he held into Sasuke's hand instead and closed the fingers around it. He straightened.

"Nope! Definitely not!"

"Don't lie to me, young man!"

"Kushina, not now," Minato said, restraining her with a nervous chuckle that went some ways towards mollifying their surrounding shinobi. Over her half-hearted attempts to stand up and throttle their son, he cast a serious, analytical look at the two sitting stiffly behind the alcohol bottles.

To Naruto's surprise, Sasuke downed the cup that he had forced on him and got up, inadvertently bringing Naruto along with him because the blonde had practically been flailing in his lap in fear of the scolding he had anticipated. Everyone else was trying to settle back into the celebratory mood and were pointedly ignoring them – there was too much danger of invoking Kushina's wrath once more – and so with a sigh, Naruto followed Sasuke without hesitation when the Uchiha pushed open the restaurant doors and entered the quiet street.

"Well this is not suspicious at all," Naruto mused, walking behind the other as the sounds of laughter faded. "Leaving together after that. Nope, definitely not about to have a totally obvious rendezvous in your house while Itachi listens with his ear to the door."

"I get the feeling that you are hinting at something," Sasuke noted. They weren't going down the street that led to the Uchiha district.

"Where are we going? Hey, are you walking me home?" Naruto exclaimed, unsure whether to be horrified. What was with people and insisting on seeing him to his house? He wasn't defenceless. At least Neji had gotten the point, eventually. It had taken a good beating, but Naruto felt justified.

"You even think like a woman."

Naruto growled, displeased. "Yes. I am waiting for you to sweep me off my feet and deflower me in my room," he said dramatically with an eye-roll, swaggering with emphasis. "Who cares if my parents might arrive home at any moment. Imagine how kinky it would be."

Sasuke stopped in front of him and Naruto walked right into his back with a solid impact and 'oof!'

"Naruto." Naruto stared questioningly at the shoulder blades in front of him. "If you don't cut that out, I'm going to take you seriously."

He snorted. "Are you an idiot? You can't deflower me a second time." He walked around the human obstacle, the words rolling off his curiously numb tongue without much thought.

"Are you playing dumb or are you that thick-headed?" Sasuke gripped him by the shoulder and forced him to turn around. He was frowning. And very, very close.

"Hey, jeez, I _know _you're not drunk," Naruto joked, tugging weakly. "Tipsy maybe, but that's no excuse for getting all touchy feely."

Sasuke observed him quietly. Then, "Come on." His grip tightened on Naruto's shoulder and Naruto clung to his forearm as the world span. He glanced around at their new surroundings as the light was switched on, blindingly bright after the relative dullness of the street.

"My room? Seriously?" he asked in disbelief, but trickles of heat at what this was hinting at were already running down the length of his spine, curling at his stomach and lower down with traitorous want.

"Your suggestion did sound like a much better way to celebrate," Sasuke remarked offhandedly, and he pushed him with the hand still on his shoulder so that the back of his knees hit the bed frame and he sprawled onto his back on his sheets. The Uchiha climbed over his body, heated eyes meeting Naruto's undecided ones challengingly.

"Wait. This is crazy. My parents might already be on their way back."

"But that's what makes it better. Isn't that what you said?" Sasuke's breath tickled his skin as hands held him down by his arms. He whined at the sensation and made a weak attempt at getting away from it, unintentionally yielding his neck in the process.

"I said kinky," Naruto denied, but really not feeling that that was helping his own case. "And I thought you said my breath stinks?"

"We have so many secrets that your parents don't know about," Sasuke was continuing to say, licking occasionally at the offered canvas. Naruto shuddered. Yes. There was so much that they had that Minato and Kushina could not even imagine. "Just imagine how much trouble we would be in if they ever found out." Sasuke bit down and Naruto yelped, completely not expecting it. He slapped indignantly at the back of Sasuke's head.

"You, stop that!"

"I like you." Naruto froze comically, raised hand and all, and peered up at Sasuke's face through locks of blonde hair that had scattered across his eyes. Sasuke leaned closer and Naruto felt weight settle – whether coincidentally or deliberately –against his nether regions. "I want this. Do you?"

With the combined touch and thrilling threat of being found, he was getting hard through the thin shorts that he was wearing. Sasuke could definitely feel it and a returning bulge was pressing against his bare thigh, making his face flame red. But Sasuke didn't tease him about it, or even use it against him. He had even stopped his assault on his neck and was waiting for a response.

Like hell that made thinking any easier anyway!

"You're just saying that," he mumbled.

"If sex was all I wanted then I'd have no trouble getting it," Sasuke deadpanned. Naruto's shy hesitance evaporated.

"Are you saying I'm easy?" he snarled.

Sasuke moved off and sat on the edge of the bed. Naruto sat up, wishing he had kept his mouth shut.

"It's obvious that you're at least physically attracted to me," Sasuke said simply, impatiently, but he didn't sound completely sure.

"And you're _just_ physically attracted to me, too," Naruto snapped.

He wasn't sure why he was pushing this so hard. Maybe it was some sense of pride. Maybe he really did want to know. However, he hadn't denied that Sasuke was one good looking bastard and perhaps if he had, he might have been able to hold out a bit more.

Instead, he abruptly found himself on his back again, arms splayed on either side of him as he blinked up at the ceiling and that weak light bulb that he ought to replace sometime soon. Sasuke entered his field of vision and was tugging loose the buttons of his own shirt, taking his acknowledgement of their mutual physical attraction as sufficient permissions.

"I've already said what I wanted to say. It's up to you whether you believe it or not. Either way, I think you're fine with this." He pulled his shirt off, exposing his well-muscled upper body, touched with the occasional scar. He surged forwards and Naruto accepted the pressure and heat that met against the length of his body. A hungry mouth complete with sharp fangs latched itself to his neck once more and he shoved away his previous inhibitions.

"I might be fine with a bit more than this."

******LEMON REMOVED******

Naruto opened his eyes blearily. Sasuke's voice came from behind his shoulder but there was no way he was moving anything right now, even to see the Uchiha's no doubt dishevelled appearance. "You alive?"

"That – was _completely_ different to the first time," he said accusingly. Sasuke chuckled and Naruto closed his eyes again as hands pulled his sweaty bangs away from his face. It was nice, Naruto thought. Even if they were rougher around the edges than lovers, at times there were still moments of lowered guards and lazy tenderness.

"I think," he mumbled contemplatively as he began to doze off, post-coital bliss no doubt making him less prudent, "I might be more than physically attracted to you." Fingers stroked his arms and he fell asleep to Sasuke's warm chakra encasing his body.

A world of pain and an ear-splitting headache welcomed him to the world the next morning. He slapped a hand over his forehead and whined out loud piteously with each second of cursed worldly awareness that he endured.

"This is why you shouldn't drink."

Naruto tensed. His hand that was under the covers edged, finger by finger to test whether his sheets were covering him, reacting with surprise when it found a cottony shirt adorning his chest. Pulling away his hand, he squinted sideways with as little movement as possible at Minato, who was standing with arms crossed next to his bedroom door.

"Can I have something for my headache please?" he begged, deciding to continue playing the drunk card.

Minato tutted but turned to get the requested, holy antidote. When he returned with two capsules and a glass of water, Naruto pulled himself up against the bed-frame, cursing the world and Sasuke –the latter in his head only –all the way.

"Thanks." He gulped them down with half the water, putting the cup on the top of his beside cupboards. All the things that might have fallen off the previous night –his clock, photo frames – were unmoved or at least placed back meticulously by someone who had memorised their positions. Gratefully, he also noticed that his covers were not the same, orange embroidered ones from last night.

"You should thank Sasuke when he gets back," Minato said as he moved to open Naruto's window and let in some fresh air. "He had to bring you home and clean up after your mess, too."

"I threw up?" Naruto guessed at the cover up. He frowned. "When Sasuke gets back?"

"His left for his first ANBU mission this morning," Minato informed him.

"Oh. What kind of mission is it?"

"Undercover recon. That's all you're getting," his father pre-empted.

"Heh." Naruto perked as he spotted something beside him, regretting the action when his ass protested with a twinge. Hiding the source of his pain as best as he could, he picked up the forgotten red pocket diary off his table and tossed it to a surprised Minato.

"I'll take whatever mission is available tomorrow," he said clearly, blue eyes glittering in a way that Minato attempted but failed to grasp.

* * *

Perched at the top of a tree barely covered by a scant dressing of leaves, Naruto waited for his target to materialise. He sat with his legs and tail of his cloak hanging from the bough, leaning his body and head against the trunk while he battled the desire for a fluffy, desirous bed that waited for him back home.

Lazily, his eyes flickered to a shadow on the path down below, wary of another false alarm. He sat up when it was impossible to confirm the person's identity, due to the obscuring white mask on their face. However, the hair certainly matched the description and with a twist of his lips, Naruto stood up and dared to release a wave of chakra into the air.

The figure down below took another step forward and disappeared. Neck prickling, Naruto twisted around to dodge the swipe but was not quite fast enough. He was caught by an arm midair around his torso. The white mask bore down upon him and his assailant pushed him off the bough completely, the two of them plummeting towards earth with Naruto being promised the brunt of the impact.

The arm around him pulled against his back suddenly and helped him to turn. The two of them met the ground on their feet, although Naruto certainly had had a brief moment of doubt.

"Were you waiting for me?" A voice whispered in his ear from behind. He heard the burning of fast moving twine as the ties of the mask were undone.

"As if. For your corpse, more like," he jibed defensively. "What idiot gave you a solitary recon as your first ANBU mission?"

"So you wanted the first claim to my body," Sasuke said in amusement. Naruto smiled mischievously and ran his fingers across the slivers of Sasuke's arms that weren't covered by protectors.

"Nah. I lie." Blue sparks danced at his fingertips and Sasuke twitched. "I really like your breathing body better," he said, ears turning pink even though what he said hardly counted as an admission to anything.

"That's an improvement."

Sasuke released him. The loss of contact made Naruto think that maybe he had said something wrong and he turned around to see what damage might require rectification.

What he found instead was a waiting serpent as the back of his head was grabbed. He was pushed forward against a ravenous mouth and he blinked into Sasuke's sharingan, eyelids lowering on the brilliant flecks that he found there. Sasuke's tongue flicked out to lick against the seam of his lips and he poked his own out in childish retaliation.

"We good?" he asked with a grin, unintentionally ambiguous.

"Mmh." Sasuke pulled back. "I don't think finishing my mission tomorrow morning rather than now would cause any problems," he suggested slyly.

"The rest of my team thinks I'm still making my way back."

"You've grown cunning. You deserve that Captain title."

"Somehow, that sounds so much better coming from you."

Sasuke led them away from the village outskirts. Naruto pondered when he might be able to attack and initiate a much needed spar. His mission, despite being an A-rank, had been sadly deprived of action.

"I refuse to acknowledge that as some weird kink of yours."

He laughed loudly.

"It was worth a try."

END OF PART THREE

* * *

Thank you to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter, I do hope that this one was worth the wait.

Comments and feedback are always welcomed and appreciated.

Until next time!


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